Friday, March 05, 2004
Rashamontashen Redux
It’s Friday - and not just any friday, but pre-Purim Friday, a day of unrivaled party potential. And what says “unrivaled party potential” better than a ponderously long cycle of essays on the Book of Esther? Most anything! But is that going to stop me? Hell no! Instead of scraping together a fistful of new drivel for you today, I’m going to regurgitate a Chucklehut classik - that is to say, something I posted last year at about this time when I didn’t have anything original to say. And since I still don’t, you are warmly invited to ignore Rashomontashen - the story of Purim told from four specific personal perspectives.
I can’t help but note, as I draft this and set up the link, that for some reason this document is full of punctuation typos - most of the apostrophies, quotation marks and hyphens have been replaced somehow with question marks. If I had the time this morning I’d scroll through and fix them all, but looking at it now there is a sort of poetic propriety to these errors - the constant self-interrogation, the incessant inquiring into every sentence. Any other typo would have infuriated me, kept me from posting this at all till it was fixed. These ones, I can live with for the short term. It’s a time to celebrate, but not without some measure of introspection and consideration - at least, at first. And that means y’all are stuck with the typos. It should be the worst thing that happens to you. I fixed the typos, and as always, tweaked the text. Have at it, party animals.
My dad calls this story a “midrash.” For most of us, this word is a euphemism for jock itch, but for the talmudicists among us (and they are legion (if “legion” means a few dozen worldwide)) midrash is an interpretation of, or a reading into, a biblical verse. I was hoping, rather, that it would be mishnah, but that was implausible. Mishna Implausible. Sick of me yet? Don’t worry, I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, have a very merry Purim, and be happy - it’s Adar!
