Boris The Terrible Celebrates (?) Purim

Despite his best efforts

Thank you to Lieutenant Colonel Eliyahu Ben Abraham, a high ranking official in the Ugandan army, and one of the leaders of the Abayudaya community, for reading and approving this post prior to publication.

The Abayudaya are a group in Uganda who have adopted many Jewish practices, and would like to join the Jewish people. This is not an assessment of their Jewish status. The facts about the Abayudaya celebrating Purim are true

((Recap, for those new to Boris, who is really terrible: Boris the Terrible owned the only grocery store in Chelm, an English speaking town surrounded by volcanoes. Boris did not like Jews, and he especially hated their religion, but he wanted to keep his monopoly on groceries in the town, so he was forced to learn just enough to stock his store. See Boris Rosh Hashanah, Boris Hanukkah, and Boris Tu Bishvat, for more details.* ))

Purim, the 14th day of Adar, is a fun Jewish holiday, which commemorates the Providential failure of a powerful and wealthy Amalekite named Haman, who tried to kill, you guessed it, the Jews. In fact, Boris was proud to be a direct descendant of Haman.

He hadn't learned a thing from Haman's disastrous end. Boris really hated how, when the month of Adar began, all the Jews in Chelm looked more cheerful. He knew that the Jews would try to schedule all their business dealings during this month, which is supposed to be a fortuitous time.

Boris hated to see the Jews happy. He decided that he would go on vacation for the entire month of Adar, leaving his daughter Zeresh in charge of the store in Chelm. He would go hunting in Uganda, like his ancestor Esau, a famous hunter. Uganda was far away, in Africa. No one would possibly celebrate Purim in Uganda!

Boris did not realize that Uganda is a very diverse country. He imagined it would be easy to join a hunting trip, kill a giraffe, and use the skins to decorate his store forever.

So he started to plan his trip to Uganda. The flight was on Saturday, so that anyone who was Sabbath observant would not be on his flight. He trained his daughter Zeresh well; both on running the store and passive aggressively causing trouble for the Jews. So it was the first day of Adar, and Boris flew to Uganda, leaving his daughter Zeresh in charge.

The Jews of Chelm were really annoyed with Zeresh as a substitute. And that was without even knowing how bad she really was. I don't think they ever figured out that she had tried to switch the Book of Esther for the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is much more depressing. Zeresh gleefully imagined the Jews taking out their scrolls on Purim. Instead of reading "And it was, in the days of Achashverosh, he was Achashverosh, who ruled from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces", she pictured them sadly whispering,

"Nothing of nothings, says Ecclesiastes, nothing of nothings, everything is nothing." That would definitely depress them on their happy day of Purim. Alas, she herself mixed them up, and sold the Book of Esther after all. No one even noticed.

Meanwhile, far away in Uganda, Boris was settling in to his Purim -free hunting vacation. He was staying near a group of Ugandans called Abayudaya. It turned out that the Abayudaya traditionally did not like to hunt. Boris was even more annoyed when they wanted to know all about the Jewish community in Chelm. It took Boris a while to learn to pronounce their name correctly.

Boris: Abadu- what?

Patient leader: Abayudaya.

Boris: Ad d'lo yadda? (On Purim, a person is supposed to drink until "ad d'lo yada" - until they cannot tell the difference between Mordechai and Haman.)

Patient Leader: Abayudaya.

Back at home, his daughter Zeresh blared static over the loudspeaker, and pretended that it was music, and that no one else in Chelm was sophisticated enough to appreciate it. People took to wearing earplugs to the store.

At the same time, on vacation in Uganda, Boris was getting to know the Abayudaya. Boris was horrified to discover that the Abayudaya wanted to be Jewish. He could not imagine why anyone would want to be Jewish.

Members of the Abayudaya community tried their best to treat Boris with kindness, and to help Boris enjoy himself on his vacation. But Boris was miserable. He had wanted to kill something, but they wouldn't let him even try for the giraffes.

Finally, he asked the Abayudaya what was keeping them so busy. The Abayudaya explained that they were busy preparing for the four major commandments of Purim. Reading the Book of Esther, gifts to the poor, gifts to friends, and the Purim Feast.

The first one involved a lot of studying. Reading the Book of Esther, which they would do once in the evening and once in the morning, required practice. They explained to Boris that this was because Haman had tried to destroy the Jews spiritually, by making a decree that the Jews could not learn Torah, keep Shabbat and holidays, be circumcised, or wear phylacteries. So we read the Book of Esther, which shows how G-d saved us spiritually, through what seems like normal coincidence, not an open miracle.

Secondly, everyone must give gifts to the poor. This is because Haman had given permission to everyone to loot from anything that a Jewish person owned on the day of Purim. So we give charity, in order to use our property for serving G-d.

Thirdly, there is the commandment to be happy. Bringing gifts to friends makes people happy, because without friends, there is no happiness. The minimum is two things to one person, but most people do much more than that.

Fourthly, they needed to prepare a feast. Haman wanted every Jewish body to be dead and buried. Therefore, there is a party, in which we support the body with good food. During this feast, people rejoice.

The Abayudaya were excitedly talking about their Purim plans. Boris could not believe that here, in Uganda, he was hearing just about as much about the holiday as he would have back in Chelm.

He called his daughter, Zeresh. He should check on her, in any case.

Boris: Zerry, darling, how are things going in the store?

Zeresh, a bit tipsy: Amazing! I play horrible loud static to annoy the people trying to sing Purim songs. They're going to be reading Ecclesiastes this Purim instead of Esther. Best of all, I've been drinking the Purim wine in advance, and I haven't been sober since you left.

Boris: How about poisoning the wine?

Zeresh: I totally would, except that I'm afraid I'll drink it by accident. Trust me, Dad, I'll make their Purim as miserable as possible.

Boris: Okay, I love you Zerry. Take care. Don't get too drunk. Take care of your mother.

Zeresh: You know I can keep down as much wine as my ancestor Belshazzar, who could drink as much wine as a thousand men, and not get even a little bit drunk.

Boris: The problem is, we are also descended from Achashverosh, who killed his wife when he was drunk.

Zeresh: Dad! You always told me not to do any good deeds! Listening to you and taking care of my mother is in the Ten Commandments !! You don't want me taking them seriously, do you?

Boris: You're right. I just worry about you. I know I can trust you to always work against Jews and the Jewish religion.

Boris went back to his trip. They saw beautiful scenery and flowers. Boris couldn't kill anything, which made him very sad. The Abayudaya, seeing how sad he looked, invited him to come with them to their Purim feast. Boris said he would only go if the feast was not kosher. The Abayudaya told him not to come.

Zeresh had more tricks up her sleeve. During the Fast of Esther, the day before Purim, she offered free samples of food and drink in the store. People put them away for later, rather than break the fast, which commemorates the Jews fasting for three days and praying for G-d to save them.

Zeresh sold graggers, noisemakers, which she had removed the internal pieces of, so they wouldn't make any noise. As a descendant of Haman, she did not want his name drowned out! But Chelm was surrounded by volcanoes, and they had lots of rocks to replace it with. Haman's name was drowned out as usual.

Everyone knows that people get confused about gifts to their friends on Purim. Is the minimum to give one gift of two items of food, or two gifts of one items of food? Zeresh maliciously hung up a sign saying that the minimum obligation is two gifts of one food item, and you give gifts to the rich people.

The Jews might have been confused, had she stuck to two gifts of one food, rather than one gift of two foods. But when people read about giving gifts to the rich people, everyone laughed at what they thought was her joke. And everyone knew the real rule was to give that one gift of two items of prepared food, and gifts to poor people.

For the festive meal, Zeresh hoped she could at least annoy the women by getting their husbands drunk. She only sold wine that was 20% or more alcohol. Boris didn't notice this until it was too late, as you will see.

Of course the Jews wouldn't eat anything she baked, but Zeresh had an awful idea. She would order prepackaged empty Hamantashen specially from the kosher bakery. Could anything be more terrible? The kosher bakery was sworn to secrecy until after Purim, as a condition of the order. Zeresh enjoyed selling the empty Hamantashen immensely.

Jewish person: I like every flavor except cherry. Please make sure none of mine are filled with cherry.

Zeresh: Don't worry. They aren't.

Jewish person: I really hate the poppy seed flavored ones.

Zeresh: There are no poppy seeds in any of these.

Jewish person: I'm allergic to citrus fruits.

Zeresh: I can promise you there are no orange or lemon flavored ones, either.

The Jews were delighted at the empty Hamantashen. What a great idea! Everyone filled them up with their favored filling at home. Zeresh was surprised that there were no complaints.

Meanwhile, Boris's trip was cut short, and he came back the day before Purim. He figured he might as well get thoroughly drunk. He got a massive hangover from alcohol poisoning that night. When he woke up the next morning, he wished he was dead.

Footnotes:

* Links to other Boris stories:

Rosh Hashanah

https://ishayirashashem.substack.com/p/boris-the-terrible-celebrates-rosh

Hanukkah

https://ishayirashashem.substack.com/p/boris-the-terrible-celebrates-hanukkah

Tu Bishvat https://ishayirashashem.substack.com/p/boris-the-terrible-fruitlessly-tries

** You will find most sources at https://ohr.edu/holidays/purim/ , happy to provide sources on request.

*** The 4 mitzvos correspondence is a Gra which my elderly friend told me, not my original thought.

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