One of the main themes of Purim involves costumes. The fun of dressing up helps us to gain an understanding of a world in which things are not what they appear to be. A world in which the opposite of what we expect to happen happens. In Pesachim 50 we learn that Rav Yosef was critically ill and had a near-death experience. When he recovers, his father asks, “What did you see when you almost departed this life?”

Rav Yosef replies “I saw an inverted world. The powerful were insignificant while the insignificant became powerful.”

I am 28 years old and have been going out with a young man for a few weeks, and I am torn. He is crazy about me and is ready to get engaged. In fact, he hints at it every time we go out. I feel under tremendous pressure. I like him, and he meets a lot of qualities on my “list.” He is very smart. He is capable, honest, and hardworking. Yet, I find myself unable to say yes. I’m not sure what is holding me back. I just have a gut feeling that something is not right. Some of his behaviors bothered me, but I am not sure if they are significant or not. I enjoy his company, most of the time, more or less, but I don’t really miss him when we’re not together, and I don’t feel happy or excited about the prospect of getting engaged. If I say yes, it will be from a practical point of view. I am an “older single,” after all. By the way, I don’t think that going out longer will help me make up my mind. I see who he is. The dilemma for me is can I make a life with a good person who is offering me marriage, children, the whole deal, or should I take a chance on finding someone with whom I can share deeper feelings.

Do you ever wonder what those men are thinking when they give out chocolates to your children in shul? Do you ever ask yourself if they are unaware of the cost of dentistry? As the grandson of a dentist, I have some notion of this, yet at the same time, I am one of those men. This is your chance to hear my side of things. A month before Pesach let me share with you a chad gadya story, a cumulative shaggy dog tale – or tail, if you prefer – about Chevron.

That fact is that today, I, Raphael D. Blumberg, am the self-proclaimed Chocolate Monster of Hebron. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, it involved a long process going back to 2011, when I started going down to Chevron every day for Rabbi Uziel Nagar’s vatikin Daf Yomi inside Me’arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs. I would like to describe that process to you, so that perhaps you can develop some compassion for us poor Chocolate Monsters, mere victims of circumstances, as you will see.

The woman was distraught. Her son had set out to that place called America, where the streets were “paved with gold.” She had seen him off at the nearby train station but had not heard from him for six months. Now her head was besieged with questions: Had he made it to the ship? Had he crossed the Atlantic safely? Did he find a job? Was he okay? Finally, she heard something. A local businessman came back from America and told her that he had seen her son and that he looked well. He even provided her with her son’s address.

The woman promptly headed to the town scribe to dictate a letter to her son. She began, “Son, it is truly not right that you have ignored your aging mother and you have not sent a letter or even a regards to let me know that you are okay. Do you not realize that I worry about you day and night and that the worry you cause me is aging me prematurely? Is this the kind of upbringing we provided, to just go off on your own and forget those you left behind?”

Have you ever heard of the expression “all dressed up with nowhere to go”? It presents the pathetic picture of a person who is all ready to go somewhere, to accomplish something, but no one wants what he has to offer. That is what it can be like for those who want to live a purposeful life. We want to emulate G-d; we want to be givers. But in order to be givers, someone has to be willing to receive.

In her book, Circle, Arrow Spiral: Exploring Gender in Judaism, Miriam Kosman describes the power of being the receiver in a relationship. “The greatest gift one can give another person is to allow him to experience that godlike feeling of being the bestower. By allowing someone to give, you are, on the deepest level, giving him a chance to express his inner essence….Someone who has no way to give is locked away from his connection to his Divine essence.” Mrs. Kosman elaborates on the connection that is created between the giver and the receiver. She says, “The art of receiving is what opens the door to relationship, to abundance, and to joy.” According to Mrs. Kosman, the giver and the receiver have a reciprocal arrangement, and both are doing kindness to each other.

Lots of people send liqueurs for Purim, in those cute little bottles, or serve them at the seuda. It so happens that making your own liqueur is really easy. For years I didn’t try it, thinking there must be some kind of trick to it. But once I could not easily find Kahlua with a hechsher (I have heard it still has a hechsher in Mexico), making my own became way more attractive. And then I discovered how easy it is.

You do not need the best vodka, but I would strongly recommend against the worst vodka. Pick a vodka you like that’s not too overboard. The coffee and sugar will not only mask the flavor of the vodka, it will mellow the vodka with time as well. You are looking for about 100 proof vodka. (Smirnoff would work.) As for the coffee, I like to use decaf coffee because I am particularly sensitive to caffeine. For a slightly earthier taste, you can use brown sugar. 

We were looking forward to a week of family simchas in late December. My niece Miri Rosenbaum’s chasuna would take place in Baltimore on Tuesday night, December 28. On Wednesday, we had the wedding of my husband’s niece in Lakewood. Thursday was the bar mitzvah brunch of a nephew, with the niece’s sheva brachos in the evening. We were going to stay in Lakewood through Shabbos sheva brachos. Since all these simchas involved close family, we planned to take our children with us and had reservations to fly from Ft. Lauderdale to Baltimore at 7:21 Monday evening.

One of my early childhood memories may offer an insight into my future choice of profession as a librarian. I clearly recall scrutinizing a family comic book whose storyline involved the adventures of a handful of puppies. I had probably heard the story many times from my parents or older siblings, but I was still a pre-reader and couldn’t read the speech balloons myself. However, I knew without a doubt that they contained the dialogue of the story. I did not yet have the skill to decode those intriguing marks and signs, but the thought of one day being able to read them myself filled me with heady anticipation. And indeed, it wasn’t long before I learned to read, and the world of words opened up before me.

I recently had the pleasure of engaging in a game that I have not even thought about since I was about eight years old. It is the game of hide-and-seek. Now what most of you don’t realize is that as you get older, you also get better at the game. This basically means that, by now, I could be playing on an Olympic level, as could many of you. However, this is not exactly what happened; let me explain.

My daughter was babysitting for a three-year-old, who, like all three-year-olds, is amazingly cute. While I was standing in the kitchen minding my own business, he ran over to me, careened into my legs, and exclaimed with glee, “I found you.” Not that I knew I was missing, but being a good sport, I turned to him and exclaimed right back, “I found you, too.”