Purim has always been a time of joy, celebration, and — let’s be honest — just a little bit of chaos. Today, it’s a full-scale production, with themed mishloach manos that rival Broadway sets and costumes that would make a Hollywood designer blush. But back in the day? Things were simpler. A homemade kugel, a pineapple, and a heartfelt Gut Yom Tov were about as fancy as it got.
I’m not the first to say it, and I won’t be the last. Our mishloach manos were not so sophisticated, and neither were all the warnings, posters, and exhortations about getting drunk. Truth be told, growing up in Woodmere back in the early 1960s, our pineapple and challah were probably the fanciest mishloach manos (or shalachmanos) in the whole Five Towns.
Purim was pretty blasé. Few kids. Few costumes. And really few drunks. I don’t recall seeing anyone get drunk until I was about fifteen. But then again, I also didn’t attend a funeral until about then, either. Clearly, I lived a rather uneventful, if not entirely boring, childhood. Until my bar mitzvah, it seems that no one got drunk and no one died.
Honestly, as much as it was a culture shock transitioning from Yom Kippur in Woodmere, when the break was basically finding out the World Series score, to Yomim Noraim in the Philadelphia Yeshiva, Purim was equally transformative.
My first real taste of a spirited Purim was indeed in Philadelphia Yeshiva, where the bochurim who did indulge in ad d’lo yoda mostly ended up crying over their tikkun hanefesh and making lofty mussar-fueled resolutions. But before then, Purim was a tame affair.
Growing up in Woodmere in the mid-1960s, we had our share of Purim traditions, though nothing like today’s glitzy extravaganza. I did not have many friends in Woodmere; most of my class was from Far Rockaway. Our groggers were cheap Japanese-made (China was on the outs) tin graggers, which made a pathetic GRRRRRCHCH sound when a small plastic gear hit a bent piece of tin inside the contraption. The costumes that the few boys and girls who went to the Hillel school wore were Zionist-themed (as if David Ben-Gurion himself had vanquished Haman), and mishloach manos was an understated affair. Iran was a friend back then, so there were no Hamanic Khomeinis either.
The highlight of our Purim, however, was accompanying my father as he made his rounds delivering shalach manos to supporters of Yeshiva of South Shore — visits that left a lasting impression on me. There were not too many people home to deliver to, and some of those who were knew that the delivery would be more than a hand-off and a goodbye.
Despite the lack of appreciation, my mother would bake a special cake or make a delicious kugel that went along with a pineapple specially picked for the occasion.
I don’t remember all the stops my father made; in the early years, there were just a few. But I will never forget two of them. They were on opposite ends of town and opposite ends of the spectrum as well. They were as diverse as arur Haman and boruch Mordechai.
One was at the stately home of Robert and Estelle Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz was an oil executive — not the kind of executive that dealt in schmaltz. He was the real thing — oil mamash. Black Gold. He was the owner of Paragon Oil, which later became a division of Texaco. Their mansion sat regally on an expanse of manicured lawn, towering over our humble jalopy as we pulled into the long driveway. We rang the doorbell, which was but a dot on the doorpost of the massive door, with an equally tiny semblance of a mezuzah. A uniformed maid led us into an austere living room, devoid of anything resembling Purim festivity.
There was no Purim atmosphere, and I felt pretty silly holding the pineapple and cake. He finally came out. He was a very distinguished, regal-looking gentleman, and he hardly noticed the two little boys with black shoe polish mustaches and white cotton beards.
We stood there, my brother and I, holding our pineapple and cake, shifting uncomfortably as Mr. Schwartz — distinguished, refined, and somewhat aloof — engaged in small talk with my father. My young eyes wandered toward a television in the next room, but my father’s firm grip on my hands ensured I remained in place.
Eventually, Mrs. Schwartz appeared, breaking the formal air by pressing a crisp dollar bill into our hands. For us, it was a windfall; for my father, the true reward came later — when the Schwartzes dedicated an entire wing to the yeshiva.
The next stop was not so far away from the first, but it was worlds apart. We found ourselves in a rickety old apartment building near the Woodmere Long Island Railroad. The dimly lit stairwell smelled of age and dust, and as we climbed to the third floor, I couldn’t help but feel we had been transported to a different world — one far removed from the opulence of the Schwartzes’ estate.
We knocked loudly. A frail, elderly voice, thick with Yiddish, called out, “Who iz deer? Who is knocking on mine door?” After my father announced himself, the door creaked open to reveal an old woman in a housecoat and tichel, her face lighting up as she recognized my father. The apartment smelled exactly as an old person’s home should — nostalgic, slightly musty, yet oddly comforting.
She welcomed us inside, offering us cookies as we made our way to the bedroom, where her husband, “The Alter Koslovski,” lay in bed beneath a worn plaid blanket. My father switched to rapid-fire Litvish Yiddish, engaging in an exchange that had me momentarily transfixed. This time, there was no television to distract us. Just a quiet moment of connection, of reverence for a man who had once helped run Slabodka’s American office and had now settled into a life of quiet dignity.
Before we left, Mrs. Koslovski insisted we receive Purim gelt, pressing a nickel into our hands. Somehow, that nickel felt weightier than the Schwartzes’ dollar. Perhaps because, in its simplicity, it carried generations of meaning. He also gave my father a sefer that he said contained Torah from his rebbi. In actuality, the sefer was only about thirty years old, but maybe due to its use, it looked older.
The Schwartzes may have left a wing for the yeshiva; the Koslovskis left behind a few seforim. My father would use the small Shas the Koslovskis gave him, and our family treasured the first-edition Chiddushei Rav Chaim HaLevi, bearing the graceful Hebrew inscription: Yaakov Koslovski.
Purim has changed over the years. The themed mishloach manos have taken center stage, and there are kol koreis about every aspect of the day. Big mishloach manos. Small mishloach manos. Yes drunk. No drunk. Giving bochurim. Not giving bochurim and so on.
I sure enjoy seeing the tumults about things that never were spoken about back in the day because it just wasn’t on the agenda. But with all the change in the world, I still have to make sure that I make two always-special deliveries — one for my modern-day Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz and one for our very own Alter Koslovski.
Because some traditions, no matter how the world changes, are worth preserving.
