Purim pulpit visit

I just had what was arguably the best pulpit visit of my (admittedly short) student rabbi career. I dressed up in my usual nice clothes but led services with the Harry Potter sorting hat wedged firmly on my head (thank you, Beverly). About twenty people were there, most in costume. I led an abbreviated service up til the point where we would usually do the Torah reading - then I led a Q & A about Purim (e.g. What city does the story of Purim take place in? What is Esther's Hebrew name? You're supposed to get so drunk on Purim that you can't tell the difference between what and what?). I threw out candy from the bima to those with the right answers, and people were laughing and cheering each other on.

Then, instead of the regular Megillah reading (reading of the Book of Esther), Carmit had passed along a Purim play. I let the 9 year old be Esther, of course, gave Jonathan's Renfaire cloak to the woman playing Haman, gave the King our RenFaire scepter, gave Vashti a glittery tie around her waist (from my bellydancing outfit), and so on and so on. Everybody had a prop and hammed it up to the max. We interspersed songs throughout, and if I didn't know a song, usually someone else did so we taught it to everyone. I also had the 9 year old help me with the hand motions to a cute Hebrew song, "My hat has three corners, three corners has my hat" - which is a very fast, very loud song. We also did one that ends with "rash, rash, rash" - literally, "noise, noise, noise" and everyone used their graggers to the utmost in an attempt to be loudest.

I had looked up some other songs and found a few adorable ones - one was "If I had a siddur" (prayerbook) sung to the tune of "If I had a hammer" by Peter Paul and Mary, and the other popular one was "Hey Jews" to the tune of the Beatles' "Hey Jude." I gave a mini-mini-sermon, we went straight to the Aleinu and concluding prayers, and everyone stayed a really long time for oneg (the schmoozing eating part afterwards). One thing that was nice was that three students came from Eastern Illinois University, and I talked to them for a long time about the meaning of Purim, how this differed from a regular service, and why Purim has absolutely nothing to do with Good Friday.

Adult Ed on Saturday went well too, I had a long five-hour drive back, and now I'm sitting on the couch eating Israeli hamantaschen sent by my dad. It was a great two days! Now I need to get started on homework... and other things like laundry and vacuuming.