THIS IS AN AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT. The robots are helpful, but not perfect; please be gracious!
Zeb 0:00
Welcome everyone. Today we're going to be talking about types of soup. I like. I have always enjoyed lentil. That's not true. Actually, I did not when I was younger, but I enjoy lentil now. I'm sorry I misled you there. What's
Hannah Gaber 0:12
the other name for lentil? Not split. What's the one? Oh, split. P I
Osnat 0:15
also like, no, uh,
Hannah Gaber 0:16
something, something mini bubble in squeak. No, that's not a soup, that's a bean dish, which I also love. All right. Osna, let me hear you in the thingy.
Unknown Speaker 0:25
Tell us about soups you like. I like
Osnat 0:27
lentil soups.
Hannah Gaber 0:28
Into the microphone, please, and also into the
Osnat 0:33
microphone. I'm sorry, soups, I don't like soups.
Unknown Speaker 0:36
That's not true at all.
Osnat 0:38
How can that be? Corn soup, Chinese corn soup. Corn soup. Wow. All
Hannah Gaber 0:42
right, I think we're rolling doing it. Live.
Zeb 0:45
You ready? I'll stop episode
Osnat 0:46
about soups.
Zeb 0:49
Yeah, I'll prepped on soup. Do you want to think about Purim for a minute? Purim, which, of course, comes at the end of soup season.
Hannah Gaber 0:58
Welcome to Jew ish, so it's Purim. And unrelatedly, my baby brother and his lovely, charming girlfriend was not who is Israeli, were in town to see the cherry blossoms. So before they left, I forced them to sit down with me and record a little mini sode about this super fun Jewish holiday, and just tell us a little bit about how it's different in the US versus Israel, and a little bit about the story of Esther Vashti King, Ahasuerus Mordecai and the bad guy, Haman boo. So for those of you who have never heard of it, and even those who have enjoy getting to know Purim and apologies in advance for butchering the story, apparently, I have been out of Sunday school for too long, but I will include actual good information about it in the show notes. Okay, hag, Purim, everyone. So anyway, it's Purim. And I don't think I can think of the word Purim without hearing Purim carnival, just because Sunday school. So we always had the Sunday School Purim carnival every single year, and there was fully like a dunking booth. And do you know what that is or not? You
Osnat 2:13
throw a ball at something and then someone falls. Yeah, yes. Which always, we don't have it.
Hannah Gaber 2:19
That always reminds me of Monty Python, where the witch? What is drowner? If she drowns, she's a witch. If she drowns, she's not a witch. That's what it is, right? It always gives me dunking booths, but like dunking booths, costume parties, face painting. So like some
Zeb 2:34
people would call it the the Jewish Halloween, which is actually quite offensive, both to Jews and Halloween.
Hannah Gaber 2:41
Uh, excuse me, I would. I love both holidays. Why is it? Why
Unknown Speaker 2:44
is it offensive? True, true. It's
Osnat 2:46
not Halloween. Is the American Purim? Yeah. Okay,
Zeb 2:50
let's put it that way, yeah, yeah.
Hannah Gaber 2:52
Except for Purim was never based on a pagan holiday, although, I don't know actually, having said that, you just discovered that it was based on who
Zeb 3:01
that. There's some theory out there that the characters themselves are based on an earlier Mesopotamian myth, because the names Mordechai and Esther, the main Jewish characters, are very similar to Marduk and Ishtar, who are gods in the Babylonian pantheon.
Hannah Gaber 3:17
And this is how nerds ruin everything.
Zebr 3:21
I don't have a more descript theory than that, but All
Hannah Gaber 3:26
right, so, having said all that, I guess we should start with the basics. Um. So Purim is a Jewish holiday that is very beloved, especially by kids and families. Very family friendly Jewish holiday, because you get to dress up. You dress up in costumes, you eat cookies, the hamantaschen, you you know, sing and dance, and everyone gets to pick a character and play a role. Cross dressing is traditional, way back when I would have to read up on, like, where that started. But as always, really, right? Like, it was always traditional for, like, men to dress up as Esther, sort of in a vaudevillian kind of way. But it's not a religious holiday, which is, I think, really interesting. It's based on the story of Esther and King Achashverosh and Mordecai, who we love, I suppose. And it's from the Megillah. There's a deeper explanation that is in the annals of my brain, from Mama Naba about, you know, the theory that during the time of the rabbis, when it was being decided which texts would come in and which texts would not to become part of the official Torah, it's fascinating that we can't really ever know. But of course, there's theories from like, because God has never mentioned to that it's a story of defiant women to that. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like, sex and murder in this one. That's true. There's
Zeb 4:43
more intrigue. There is. It's
Hannah Gaber 4:44
kind of, it's a little bit, you know, it's a little scandalous, but, you know, we don't die in the end. So I guess there's that.
Zeb 4:51
It's the only story that has no mention of God, we saved ourselves that time. I like
Hannah Gaber 4:56
that. We saved ourselves that time. Hey, y'all. Just butting in here to give a little note, Zeb and I kind of went on a tangent here, but the book of Esther is included in the Tanakh, the full Hebrew Bible. It is one of the books in the Ketuvim, which are the writings it was not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. And there is quite a bit of discussion about why this is and about there having been some resistance to including it in the canon in the first place, but the holiday of Purim is not mentioned in the Torah at all. So that is interesting. Okay, I don't know. Man, I I was in a lot of Purim plays. I remember one time that we do remember the one we did based on Greece, where Rabbi Kohan. But now that I look back on it, it was a little strange, because I was, for sure, in high school, and I was the sandy character, and it was, there's something about wearing a black halter top and a midriff showing tight on the Bema with the rabbi in his leather coat. Do you remember?
Zeb 5:58
It sounds familiar? It was, uh, yeah, remember. I
Hannah Gaber 6:01
wish I could remember some of those songs, but all I can remember is hagpurim. Hagpurim. Do you know the rest of it?
Osnat 6:11
Yes, there
Hannah Gaber 6:13
we go.
Osnat 6:16
Oh, actually, it's, I'm not sure if it's Layla dim or Leah dim. There are two versions. I'm not sure which one is the true,
Hannah Gaber 6:24
but you can do two verses, right? We can do one of each.
Osnat 6:31
What do you think? Or you Okay, what does that mean? Big holiday for the kids, or a big holiday for the Jewish people? Oh, so
Hannah Gaber 6:41
that's what I remember from Purim. Purim carnivals, dunking booths, dressing up as Sandy, but I guess it was really Esther, which was actually, now that I think about it, pretty cool that it got to be Esther because she is the main character. But in Israel, as we have discovered, since Audre snot has come and we have compared notes on a lot of things, what do you do in Israel for Purim? Is it the same?
Osnat 7:03
I think the main difference is that it's Purim for everyone, and not only for your Hebrew school from four to six. So it's like three days that everyone just wears costume. Everywhere they go. You can go buy grocery and like be
Hannah Gaber 7:19
Oh. So it's just like a festival season, like you just wait around in coffee whole
Osnat 7:23
days wearing costumes no matter where you go. I mean, especially in like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but I guess most places, and we have the mishlachmanot, you don't have michmanot here.
Zeb 7:34
We don't really do it, no, but it's one of the mitzvahs of the holiday, apparently. Can you describe what that is?
Osnat 7:39
I mean, I feel like Halloween is based on Purim because of the candy stuff. But, um,
Hannah Gaber 7:45
it's not. It's not. I can link to a very interesting show about the origins of Halloween, but in any it's amazing. Through line, once again, kills it. But they're just about any who go on. So
Osnat 7:57
mishlachman, I guess that originally, it's like giving something for the poor people, like we like to do in Judaism, but we just make a mishmanot, which is a basket of candies. And on Purim day, you come to school, and then you get a note of a name of someone else in class, and you switch your mishloakmanot with him, and then you get a different basket filled with candies. That's it.
Hannah Gaber 8:24
So you're switching candy for worse candy.
Osnat 8:26
Sometimes, sometimes, that's what happens. Yeah,
Zeb 8:30
it's like you give, you give anonymous gift baskets, basically,
Hannah Gaber 8:33
oh right,
Zeb 8:35
to each other, to not anonymous, to
Osnat 8:37
each other, to another kid in class. Oh, okay.
Hannah Gaber 8:40
So it's, it's almost really like what we do for Valentine's Day.
Zeb 8:44
Oh, yeah, true. And then you have the reading of the Megillah, right? But that's and we like to say too, Oh, we did. We. That's when we did the play. We did. We did the whole
Hannah Gaber 8:53
Megillah, because that's where it comes from, right? So it is one of the five scrolls the megilot, but what are the other five scrolls? So there's all these. All of them are not Ruth. Is not part of the five books. It is the book of Ruth, correct? Yeah, book of Ruth, Book of Esther. I guess none of us are like religious enough to know this off the top of her,
Zeb 9:15
this would be a question for our parents. We're
Hannah Gaber 9:17
all a little Jewish. I'm sure Mom will call and have some insight. What else happens in Israel.
Osnat 9:22
That's it. You go to a lot of pouring parties. You dressed with a little clothes, although it's usually still very cold,
Zeb 9:34
like it's not cold at all. That is like Halloween, yes.
Osnat 9:38
And you we also have, like, a costume contest.
Hannah Gaber 9:43
Oh, do you have it, like, in school and everywhere? It's not just, Oh, that's awesome. Do you have one every day?
Osnat 9:48
If it's three days, depends on where do you go, if you go to a lot of, like, Purim parties. Oh, so there's Purim parties definitely. Yeah, it's a whole festival a three day. It's for. Festival. That's
Hannah Gaber 10:00
amazing. Do cities dress I mean, I almost said cities dress up. Do cities decorate? And
Osnat 10:04
I forgot the best part, we have adlo yada. Adlo yada. It's like the mitzvah of Purim Ade loyada. It means to drink until you don't know anything.
Hannah Gaber 10:15
Oh, to black out you're supposed to the commandment. You're commanded to blackout Dirk. But
Osnat 10:21
that's also, yeah, it is a mitzvah. But, like, Jews have fun. It's also the name of the parade we have, like the big cities have at loyada, which is just a Purim parade, where the big one have, like, big car. Cars. Made, yeah, going and displays, displays, yeah, and like, little kids dancing around them and going the Main Street. And everyone comes with their costumes, and it's fun a little bit like St Patrick's Day had in Philly. I don't know if it happens everywhere. Parade
Hannah Gaber 11:01
with that St Patrick's Day, yes, it does indeed happen everywhere. They do floats. They do Purim floats.
Zeb 11:09
What floats?
Hannah Gaber 11:10
The float is what you saw at the St Patrick's Day parade where it's like a it's like a car with a platform and a whole motif on top of it that just drives down the street. Big
Osnat 11:17
one. Very big. Nice one. That
Hannah Gaber 11:19
is so funny.
Zeb 11:21
You told me before that Purim is your favorite holiday. It's not right. It is,
Hannah Gaber 11:30
I guess, on some level, we should probably start going over the story of Esther. Well, I guess the story of Purim and the Cliff's Notes, from my memory, are essentially that there is a King who comes to power, King hashuarius, who wants to marry the most, the most beautiful girl in all the land. You know, the same old line of the virgins, thing from, from the jwa.org after Esther becomes queen. Her Cousin Mordecai becomes involved in a power struggle with the Grand Vizier Haman, the agagite Boo. Also, that's the thing you're supposed to yell. Make noise every time we say the name of Haman,
Hannah Gaber 12:12
a descendant of the Amalekite king who was an enemy of Israel during the time of King Saul. Of course, naturally, Mordecai refuses to bow before Haman. Yes, this another thing where Jews get in trouble because they won't bow. This is a whole, you know, it's a motif, we don't bow. We only bow to God. So that's the whole. This is what's so interesting, though, is because, if the book never mentions God, but that's what I was always taught, is that Jews can't bow to a king because we already have a king, so to say, and you're not, and it ain't you. You're just a person, and I can't do that. So Haman resolves not only to put this is why, duh, I forgot. This is the infuriating offense. Mordecai won't bow. And he says, I'm a Jew. I can't and Haman decides to slaughter the entire people. He secures the king's permission to do this. And the date is set, the 13th of Adar.
Osnat 12:58
There's nothing another confusing thing about Purim, where it's celebrated in different days, if you're surrounded by water now walls,
Zeb 13:06
you know it really, yeah, there's Purim and Shushan poor if,
Osnat 13:10
like in Jerusalem, the cities that are in the world celebrate Purim, I think a day after, for some reason.
Zeb 13:17
Yeah, there are few holidays that are two days long if you're in Jerusalem. Oh, so
Hannah Gaber 13:22
what you're saying is, be in Jerusalem, or you can party hardy next year in Jerusalem, two days of Purim. Yeah. So, you know, Mordecai gets wind of the plot, rushes to the palace to inform Esther, weeping and clothed in sackcloth. At this point in the story, Esther's character comes to the fort when she first learns of Haman plot and the threat to the Jews, her reaction is one of helplessness on pain of death. She cannot approach the king without being summoned. Ah, right, I remember that, so she has to get herself summoned. Oh, no, she risks it, that's right. She risks it on the pain of death. Um, following mordecai's insistent prodding, she resolved to do what she can to save her people, ending with the ringing declaration, I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. All right. So we celebrate. I mean, the way I was sort of raised to understand Purim was a number of things, celebrating the sort of, shall we say, disobedience of women. I don't want to say disobedience, but certainly like the celebrating women bucking arbitrary control measures, I should say, and that, you know, you're sort of congratulated for doing that, where it's like, no, no, no, but also that attitude of like, I have to do what's right, and if I, if I die, I die, but I have to do this thing, whether it's not bowing to a false idols. Basically,
Zeb 14:38
there's also the the first story of a hush first wife, Vashti. Why is he looking for a new wife? Is because, oh, he killed it. I, I okay? No, not. I remembered the story that he was drinking with his buddies one time, and they told him, summon, summon your wife to come dance for us. And she refused to to dance nude. They were in. Then he kicked her out. Yeah, I think he didn't kill her, though. I think he was like, well, I'll just get a new wife. Now,
Hannah Gaber 15:05
I do remember that. God, how can I always loved Queen Vashti for that?
Speaker 0 15:08
Yeah, people always also, although she's a fleeting character, that just sort of sets up the story, people generally add that as well to the feminist theme you mentioned,
Hannah Gaber 15:16
which is, man, I
Speaker 0 15:17
have been maybe more popular here. Is that also popular in Israel? Good question.
Osnat 15:20
I think, yes, I don't remember.
Hannah Gaber 15:24
Okay, apparently I was not as remembering of it as I am. I'm into it.
Zeb 15:30
I like that. Yeah, okay. No, see,
Hannah Gaber 15:32
I'm reading it here. Wikipedia says she was either executed or banished for her refusal to appear at the king's banquet to show her beauty as a hushuarish with witchhead, and was succeeded by Queen Esther, a Jew, but a secret Jew. She only reveals it after, you know, she goes to her king and says, I have a very important thing I have to ask you. And he says, whatever you want to my love. So, you know, hooray for disobedient women. Well behaved women rarely make history. The whole thing, right?
Zeb 15:58
That was Esther said that
Hannah Gaber 16:01
that's been attributed. I've seen it attributed to everyone from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to like Eleanor Roosevelt. But now I'm gonna look it up. Yeah, so I did not remember that story very well.
Hannah Gaber 16:17
This will be your first Purim here.
Osnat 16:19
Coop. Are you sad I'm an audience. Yeah. I mean, this year, it's a little bit different, less happy than usually, but yeah, Purim. Purvim is one of my favorite holidays. I usually have like, three different costumes every year, like for every one Purim, and it is says that I don't have where to dress up and wear costume here and make my costume, and it's like a whole thing. Oh, so
Hannah Gaber 16:46
you usually start, like, early, early on you're thinking about maybe for a couple months. You're like, Oh, what do I want my costume to be for Purim?
Osnat 16:52
Like, two days after Purim is ended, we start, I mean, me and my crazy friends started to think about our next year costume, because you
Hannah Gaber 17:02
see someone else's costume and you're like, Man, that was awesome. I want to be something like that, but I could do it better. Yeah,
Osnat 17:07
definitely. It's like walking around in a catalog of costumes and thinking about ideas for the next year.
Hannah Gaber 17:13
That is super cool. Zeb, did you? Did you do the proper Israeli Purim when you were living there?
Zeb 17:18
I think probably not enough, not as much as us, not you also manage the manage a staff of a few people, so you would always make them all do a group costume, right? Yes. And did you
Hannah Gaber 17:28
have to? You don't have to dress up as the characters, do you? Because I mean traditionally that. I feel like that's always
Zeb 17:32
traditionally, that is it. But in Israel now it's definitely just any costume. And there's also, there is no Halloween in Israel. So this is the costume house. But Halloween
Osnat 17:43
has to be like creepy things. Doesn't have to be anymore.
Unknown Speaker 17:47
You're right. That's the original,
Hannah Gaber 17:48
originally. Well, the original was, anyway, yeah, it all really started with the pranks. They started doing trick or treat so young boys would quit burning shit down for the most part. Again, I'll, I'll link to that. I can cite my sort of, it's through line, but yeah, so Purim starts at sundown, like all Jewish holidays, and it's only a one day holiday, unless you're in Jerusalem, apparently, or in any walled city, or just,
Zeb 18:16
I think, any walled city, yeah.
Hannah Gaber 18:19
And I fully butchered the story, so I should probably get a a more succinct reading of it in there somewhere.
Zeb 18:28
Redo that one.
Hannah Gaber 18:30
Hey, uh, yeah, we used to have a, we used to have quite a quite a time, but it sounds like you guys did it better as usual. And of course, then we get to eat hamantaschen, which supposedly are, made in the shape of haman's three pointed hat. Oh, Haman, boo, wait,
Zeb 18:46
that's also a difference. Yeah, okay,
Hannah Gaber 18:48
tell me the shape
Osnat 18:49
of his heck.
Zeb 18:50
What is it called in Hebrew
Osnat 18:52
osne, Haman, it's the shape of his ears. But
Zeb 18:56
why haman's ears?
Hannah Gaber 18:57
Why are haman's ears different shapes than other people's ears?
Osnat 19:00
That's a good question, but that's why we eat them, because they're in a triangle shape, and it's his ears, so we eat them.
Hannah Gaber 19:08
That's barbaric, right?
Osnat 19:10
He tried to kill us, so we eat his ears.
Zeb 19:13
By the way, both have a distinct how are we gonna translate the decapitating part of the story for kids? Let's
Hannah Gaber 19:18
just stick with his ears. Wait, was he decapitated? I thought he was hung. No, I don't know. We're never moved to the bottom of this. I think it's hilarious that you call it Hannah's ears. I'm looking, I'm looking online. It says his hat.
Zeb 19:33
Like, do you look in Hebrew? It's not where you're checking Hebrew, yes,
Osnat 19:37
working on it. Okay, we're
Hannah Gaber 19:39
gonna compare it. My Jewish learning says the carnivalesque Jewish holiday of Purim celebrates a tale of Jewish survival in the face of near genocide masterminded by the megalomaniac villain of the piece, Haman boo. Oh, and that was the other thing, probably my favorite part. We always got to make noisemakers. Did you guys ever do that? Yeah, like this, this room. Reminds me of, did you ever see that South Park where they have Moses, who is the glowing he's like the Moses is the god of summer camp. I desire macaroni pictures, and one of them, the glowing Moses God of the Jews is I desire noisemakers made of paper plates and beans. Like kind of me. I was dying because that's that's what we did. We made noisemakers, made of paper plates folded in half full of beans and stuff. And then we would go to the Purim carnival. And every time we heard his name, we would shake it and go, oh, so the tradition of eating hamantaschen on Purim. Oh, this makes more sense began in late 18th Century Germany, when pastries filled with poppy seeds were a popular treat. Oh, so I'm the right one. Very late. Everyone makes fun of me treating the poppy seed, but that's the OG and that's my favorite one. Uh, these cookies were called montaschen, which translates to poppy seed pockets. In the early 19th century Germany, Germany, Jews started making them specifically for Purim, and called them hamantaschen because the name of the Purim villain, Haman sounds like mon playing off the pun. It was said that the cookies stuffed with seeds represented haman's pockets stuffed with bribes. Yet another interpretation. So they're his ears, they're his pockets, they're his hat.
Zeb 21:17
Is that Taschen mean pocket
Osnat 21:21
German in some language, apparently, there's also some language, um, traditions that they eat there his teeth and his eyes. Gross. Yeah, okay,
Hannah Gaber 21:34
the triangular shaped pastry came to be understood not as hamans pockets, but as his tricorn hat. Though such a style would have been unlikely in ancient Persia. I was like, Wow, that sounds a lot more like
Zeb 21:45
a, like a, like a pirate hat, exactly.
Hannah Gaber 21:48
I always thought of it as a pirate hat. And then it says, In Israel, the pastries are called osne Haman. Yeah, Haman years. Oh, and don't worry everyone, there's a Midrash for that. Describe the defeated Haman has doubled over with oz name mekutafoot. I should probably let you say that
Osnat 22:05
clipped ears. Makutafoot, yeah, it's not a Yeah,
Hannah Gaber 22:09
it's not a thing we say. We don't say clipped ears.
Osnat 22:11
We don't say metafoot. We
Zeb 22:13
don't clip people's ears anymore. We used to, but we're ashamed of it now.
Hannah Gaber 22:20
So we changed it. We changed the rules. Uh, yeah. So there you go. For centuries, fardic Jews had a different foreign pastry called hamans ears, made of fried No, soaked in syrup or honey. Dang,
Zeb 22:31
that sounds way better. Sounds better, yeah, uh,
Hannah Gaber 22:36
today, hamantaschen are, uh, enjoyed all over the world. So you know these days, Nutella, strawberry, my favorite is still poppy seed.
Zeb 22:47
What's your favorite? I like the original as well. What do you like?
Osnat 22:50
Not poppy seed, anything but poppy seed,
Hannah Gaber 22:53
dang. All right. Chocolate.
Zeb 22:56
Get stuck in your teeth because it's not good. It's
Osnat 22:59
for grown ups. It's not for kids.
Hannah Gaber 23:03
Well, I guess we know who's still here. I'm old. Well, happy. Purim hag, Purim moat, Nope, just, just one had Purim same hamantaschen. Check the links to get the story of Esther straight, because I did not.
Zeb 23:24
Did we cover? Are there more? I feel like there's one more mitzvah we missed, drinking,
Osnat 23:27
wearing costume, read the story. Yeah, yep, yes, that's it. I'm just excited that there's
Hannah Gaber 23:36
I'm just excited there's commandments for a holiday that's not even religious, and they all have to do with partying.
Zeb 23:42
That's true, that's true. Have a carnival. Have a carnival.
Hannah Gaber 23:46
Drink tea, black out Purim. Thank you for tuning in for our Purim spectacular. This has been yet another episode of Jew ish. If you like the show, please go ahead and drop us a five star rating and give us a follow. And most importantly, telefriend. Word of mouth is by far the best way for people to find us. Please do check the show notes in this one, I have a lot of links because I was really stumbling along here. Thank you, Zeb and oz, not for bailing me out, and we'll see you next time Jewish is a Seymour production, you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
