Ad D'Lo Yada: the Danger and the Shtuyot
Purim is here, and all over Jewishdom people are looking forward to getting stinking drunk.
Not a pretty picture.
But don't Chazal tell us to get drunk? It says one is required to drink Ad D'Lo Yada, until one can't distinguish, between 'curse Haman' and 'bless Mordechai." That sounds like a lot of drinking.
Not necessarily; and the prohibitions against all sorts of indecent behavior, such as the actions that could be brought about by too much drunkenness, are still in effect. We can't use the excuse of Purim joy to behave like animals.
And then there are the dangers -- the rise of alcohol and drug abuse in the frum community, as well as the teens who end up in the hospital or the cemetery from their Purim (and sometimes Simhat Torah) drinking. There is a clear and present danger here that, based on Pikuach Nefesh, overides Ad D'Lo Yada.
It's not just me saying this...read this article from Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Weinreb related to the OU's campaign against alcohol abuse in the frum world. Many other people are working towards this goal...while others just ignore it.
Many years ago I worked for a frum company in Boro Park. One of the very haredi young women who worked there, daughter of a well-known Rav, came in after Purim one year all excited that she had gotten to smoke a cigarette for Purim! And she said, "Next year, I'm going to try marijuana!"
Purim isn't about doing things that are wrong! Cigarettes and marijuana are both drugs that are forbidden by Torah law (not according to everyone, unfortunately.) Purim should be about relaxing enough to reach a high level of simcha; to celebrate our redemption. A little bit of drinking can help with that. (Never forget also the Ramban, who said you should just drink enough to make you sleeply and then take a nap, because when you're asleep you can't distinguish anything.)
Rav Shlomo Riskin one year quoted someone else (it might have been the Kotzker Rov but I don't remember for sure,) about the difference between drinking of drunkenness and drinking of the Mitzva. If you feel joy inside, and drink to help yourself express it, that is drinking of the Mitzva. But if you feel no joy, and drink to try to put joy inside you, that is the drinking of drunkenness. Too much of the behavior we see on Purim demonstrates the latter.
So have a wonderful Purim, but try to remember to be a mentsch, and express your simcha instead of drowning your neshama.
Or, as Rav Riskin put it another time, "Eat, drink, and be careful!"
Not a pretty picture.
But don't Chazal tell us to get drunk? It says one is required to drink Ad D'Lo Yada, until one can't distinguish, between 'curse Haman' and 'bless Mordechai." That sounds like a lot of drinking.
Not necessarily; and the prohibitions against all sorts of indecent behavior, such as the actions that could be brought about by too much drunkenness, are still in effect. We can't use the excuse of Purim joy to behave like animals.
And then there are the dangers -- the rise of alcohol and drug abuse in the frum community, as well as the teens who end up in the hospital or the cemetery from their Purim (and sometimes Simhat Torah) drinking. There is a clear and present danger here that, based on Pikuach Nefesh, overides Ad D'Lo Yada.
It's not just me saying this...read this article from Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Weinreb related to the OU's campaign against alcohol abuse in the frum world. Many other people are working towards this goal...while others just ignore it.
Many years ago I worked for a frum company in Boro Park. One of the very haredi young women who worked there, daughter of a well-known Rav, came in after Purim one year all excited that she had gotten to smoke a cigarette for Purim! And she said, "Next year, I'm going to try marijuana!"
Purim isn't about doing things that are wrong! Cigarettes and marijuana are both drugs that are forbidden by Torah law (not according to everyone, unfortunately.) Purim should be about relaxing enough to reach a high level of simcha; to celebrate our redemption. A little bit of drinking can help with that. (Never forget also the Ramban, who said you should just drink enough to make you sleeply and then take a nap, because when you're asleep you can't distinguish anything.)
Rav Shlomo Riskin one year quoted someone else (it might have been the Kotzker Rov but I don't remember for sure,) about the difference between drinking of drunkenness and drinking of the Mitzva. If you feel joy inside, and drink to help yourself express it, that is drinking of the Mitzva. But if you feel no joy, and drink to try to put joy inside you, that is the drinking of drunkenness. Too much of the behavior we see on Purim demonstrates the latter.
So have a wonderful Purim, but try to remember to be a mentsch, and express your simcha instead of drowning your neshama.
Or, as Rav Riskin put it another time, "Eat, drink, and be careful!"
posted by meturgeman | 7:59 PM
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