TYJP Costume Purim Party (Costume encouraged, but optional) Saturday, March 18, 2000 8:00 PM - until ???? NEW LOCATION [PLEASE PASS THIS TO OTHERS THAT YOU KNOW WHO PLAN TO ATTEND] Dave Kaye's house in Raleigh ------------------------------------------------------ To RSVP or for more info, contact Dave Kaye: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or call 858-5607 RSVP by 3/12 to reduce admission cost ------------------------------------------------------ Purim shares some rituals with the American Halloween and the Irish St. Patrick's day. Saturday, March 18, we'll be celebrating with a big party and giving away prizes for outrageous, creative, attractive, and unique costumes. The crowd will judge. We'll provide food (hamantashen and munchies), non-alcoholic beverages, and a limited amount of alcoholic beverages. You are welcomed to bring food and beverage. Volunteers are always needed. Please let us know if you can assist. Costs: Members - $2 with RSVP by 3/12 ($5 without RSVP and after 3/12) Non-members and other guests -$5 with RSVP by 3/12 ($7 after 3/12 and at the door) Purim is the traditional holiday where people give gifts (Chanukah wasn't the first). It is also the holiday of excess, cleverness, and silliness. A major theme of the holiday is that you should be so 'drunk' so as not to know the difference between "Blessed be Mordechai" and "Cursed be Haman." How to achieve the appropriate level of drunkenness is up to you. Some choose to become drunken with song, others with dancing. Others may choose an easier route. It is all up to you. Directions: 4217 Reavis Road Raleigh, NC 27606 (919)858-5607 Directions: 40 to Wade Ave Extension (exit 289) Take the outer beltline to exit 2A, Western Boulevard Left at your first light (Subway and Circle K)on to Method First Left (only 100 yards)on to Reavis Travel 500 yards and the house is on the left, the second from the end... (Brick ranch) If you would like to know more about the significance of Purim, you may wish to visit: http://aish.com/holidays/purim/ or read the following excerpt from the web site. by Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf The concept of wearing costumes and of concealing one's identity, is a recurrent theme throughout Purim. Examples of hidden identity and costumes in the Book of Esther include: When Esther and all the other candidates to become queen are brought to the palace, they are given their choice of clothing, jewelry and make-up to wear when presenting themselves to the king. After being chosen as queen, Esther conceals her identity as a Jew. Mordechai's identity as the one who saves the king's life remains hidden from the king -- until just the right moment. King Achashverosh orders Haman to dress Mordecai in royal garments and parade him through the streets of Shushan. COSTUMES AND CLOTHING Clothing makes a definite statement about who we are. But clothing is only one form of adornment. By belonging to particular clubs or groups or organizations, we also adorn ourselves. Our affiliations and associations make a statement about who we are. So does our furniture, our cars and the magazines we subscribe to. All are outer manifestations of our inner selves. On Purim, we radically alter our most fundamental form of outer expression. We replace our regular clothing with a costume. In so doing, we hope not to exchange one costume for another, but to penetrate beneath the outer layers and discover a hidden essence. On Purim we dress as someone we could never be -- a king, a queen or even as Haman the Jew-hater. Stripped of our usual attire, no longer rely on the externalities of clothing to define us, but are free to explore a very personal inner world. Masquerading has a paradoxical way of allowing us to see who we really are. By putting on a face that is not mine, I am able to look within and ask myself, who then am I? "Were we to take as much pain to be what we ought, as we do to disguise what we are, we might appear like ourselves without being at the trouble of any disguise at all." (Francois de la Rochefoucauld) There is no fear as debilitating as the fear of "what will people think?" We become stifled and stilted when we just can't allow ourselves to be ourselves. All because we are afraid of what people will think. In this vein, a costume can be liberating. All you need is a mask and some old clothing and no one will ever know who you are. Suddenly you are free to be yourself. You can go around telling corny jokes and making people laugh (if bringing smiles to people's faces is what you would really like to do). Or you can spend time visiting a nursing home (if warming lonely hearts is what you are really all about). Or you can be a king and treat your wife like a queen. Or be a horse and give all the neighborhood kids a ride. Or anything else you really want to be -- but aren't -- because of what other people will think. And if you do it right on Purim, you just might find that you no longer care as much, about what other people think. COSTUMES AND LAUGHTER We all have an alter ego, a part of us that would like to be something we are not. This alter ego is an inner adversary that can foil our best attempt to achieve what we want to achieve. At times it seems that we are forever locked in a struggle: us against ourselves. My teacher, Rabbi Noah Weinberg of Jerusalem, says that on Purim you should dress up as your alter ego -- and laugh. Do you want to devote your weekends to bettering your community, but you feel like going fishing? Then dress up like a fisherman, and laugh at yourself. Do you want to be there when your kids need you, but you feel like watching a good movie on television? So dress up like a couch potato, and laugh. More than Bart Simpson or Eddie Murphy, there is a deeper side to laughter. It cuts things down to size. Like when we get too serious about things or overly absorbed in our work, or ourselves. At these times, laughter is therapeutic. It cuts things down to size and helps us gain some much-needed perspective. Haman built a gallows upon which to hang Mordecai, and suddenly Haman himself is hung on those very gallows. The 13th day of Adar had been decreed as a day of destruction for the Jewish people; and in a flash it became a moment of salvation. Laughter comes when a predictable sequence of events suddenly produces the unexpected. Purim is a time for tapping into the power of laughter. We realize that no matter how bleak things seem, we must never give up hope. And when we dress like our alter ego, like a couch potato, a beauty queen, or president of the United States -- we laugh. And cut our nemesis down to size. >From "One Hour Purim Primer," by Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf. <http://www.leviathanpress.com> ___________________________________________________________________________ TYJP is supported by annual membership dues and the local Jewish Federations. For more information, please visit http://www.rtpnet.org/tyjp or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please support tyjp. Have you missed or deleted a message? Visit the the tyjp mail archive at: http://www.mail-archive.com/tyjp-l%40rtpnet.org/ or click the link off our home page at http://www.rtpnet.org/tyjp END
Reminder + Change in Purim Party Location
Triangle Young Jewish Professionals Sun, 12 Mar 2000 16:15:53 -0800
