Purim – When Caution Is Everything

…Please help me keep our precious children safe. This is unchartered territory for them! Don’t let them convince you that they have everything under control. Be intrusive! Insist on clarity! Again, I will reiterate that I must be informed of all plans… Let us help the boys have a Purim as close to the ruchniyusdik simcha it was meant to be. Thank you for your cooperation!!

Although my son’s yeshiva high school is comprised of clean-cut, peaceful boys, whom I could never imagine getting into trouble or going where they should not be, I was thrilled to receive a long letter from my son’s principal sent to all parents, of which the above quote is a small segment. Purim is a time when one can never be too cautious, and it is a time when proactive, extreme control and intervention to prevent problems is fully warranted.

Although I wrote this article after last Purim, when it was too late to be of immediate use, readers may wish to peruse the article this year in advance of Purim, to consider what I feel are some critical precautions and to ponder how failing to establish necessary guidelines and limits can lead not only to danger, but to totally missing the deep message and powerful inspiration of Purim.

Purim is a time to perceive Hashem’s behind-the-scenes Presence and Providence; it is a day packed with the most profound and stirring of lessons and hadracha. Let’s capture the energy and beauty of Purim and not risk losing and sabotaging it all through unchecked self-comportment.

A freilichen Purim to all.

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2 Responses

  1. Selah L says:

    I do really appreciate this article!

  2. Raymond says:

    It is probably too late to make a comment on this, but for whatever my thoughts on this are worth, I do not think that anybody other than Torah scholars should be allowed to drink alcohol in Purim. I myself do not like to drink, period, but I have seen too many supposedly Orthodox Jews behave quite obnoxiously due to the endless amounts of alcohol that they drink on Purim. Such behavior is, to my mind at least, the very antithesis of how a good Jew should behave, and so such drinking should be heavily discouraged, even on Purim.

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