Thinking about Purim
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Growing up Purim was one of the most exciting and happiest days of the year. I will never forget the community Purim Seudah where the highlights were the costume contest and the C.H.I.P.S. cap gun fights we use to play.
Another of the highlights was the dining room table lined with MiShloach Manos (gift baskets) filled with Hamantashen, candy and other assorted junk.
Mishloach Manos changed a bit with the creation of the Shaloch Manos Express created by the Young Israel of Passaic-Clifton that now exists in virtually every frum community in the States and in Israel. Instead of preparing 75 different packages to give out, the Shaloch Manos Express allowed you to pay a couple of bucks per family and the Shul would give out a basket of goodies to each family in the congregation with a list of the names of the other families that contributed to that package.
As a kid this really stunk since that meant instead of getting 50 baskets of food you only got about 20 packages of food. As an adult and a father of 5 I can really a
ppreciate this system. And this year I signed up for two such programs in the community which covers about 80% of the people I wanted to give to. Everyone wins as this project also acts as a fundraiser for the Shul.
But there are still the other 20% or in my case about 25 families that I want to give to that are not on the lists and usually we try to make a nice gift to go out.
But this year is different. This year the economic situation is hurting everyone. This year giving more money to charity is a better option than making nice gift baskets. So while we will give our smaller gifts this year, we hope to give more to Tzeddaka this year. In fact that would probably be a good suggestion for everyone.
What do you plan on doing?
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