As Purim Fades Away

Purim arrived this year along with a stretch of unseasonably hot weather, and even though the sun has long disappeared from view, the air is still warm and heavy. The apartments lining the streets of Yerushalayim are all alight, windows wide open, music wafting out. Thanks to the curious law of physics that provides onlookers on darkened streets with an unfiltered view of any illuminated home, you can make a pretty good guess as to the occupants of each apartment. That one, with the tight knot of bochurim endlessly jumping up and down, must belong to a maggid shiur or rebbi. The other one, with lots of little people hanging on to the window bars and shadows of all heights and dimensions behind them, belongs to grandparents hosting the extended family.

Outside on the streets, there’s more music: a crowd of bochurim dressed in matching black vests and red bowties, carrying a speaker, staggering toward the next building to make their pitch yet again. A car blasting Purim music on repeat through open windows.

In the traffic island bisecting the main street, a slight bochur stands at attention, a snare drum hanging from his neck. A bus approaches, and he steps in its path and holds out his hand. Then he gets to work with his drumsticks, rattling out a DUM-DUM-dum-dum-dum. The bus driver obligingly plays back the same motif, honking out a HONK-HONK-honk-honk-honk, and the bochur-turned-drummer graciously waves him on. The driver of the minivan behind him should be annoyed — the seats are full of cranky kids who have school tomorrow — but, when stopped by the self-appointed traffic cop, he rolls down his window and extends a warm one-handed hug.

At each bus stop stand families headed home after spending Purim with Savta. Like most young Israeli couples, they can’t afford to buy apartments in this city where they grew up, and so they’ve made their homes in outlying areas. They already celebrated Purim on Friday, but today they’ve brought their parents their nachas, all dressed in matching clown costumes, nurse-and-doctor ensembles, or classic Yerushalmi outfits: for the boys, miniature gold caftans, and for the girls, black tights standing in for headkerchiefs, knotted elegantly at the napes of little necks.