Are Jews actually supposed to get drunk on Purim? I understand there is a statement in the Talmud to that effect, but perhaps it is not to be taken literally? It seems such an unJewish thing to do! Surely there are other, more refined and more spiritual ways of celebrating and showing joy!

Answer:

The source of this practice is a passage from the Talmudic tractate Megillah (7b):

Rava said: A person is obligated to drink on Purim until he does not know the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordechai."

The issue of whether and how Rava’s statement should be implemented in practice is a matter of disagreement between various Halachic authorities. The concept of becoming intoxicated on Purim is a legitimate Halachic position, which requires understanding and validation regardless of whether or not it is accepted in practice.

Our grandparents knew that shikker is ah goy--Jews don’t get drunk. How, then, do we reconcile the Halachah to get drunk on Purim with our understanding of the kind of life that the Torah commands us to lead? Can we allow ourselves to relinquish control over our behavior one day a year, or even once in a lifetime? Can we abnegate our awareness of the difference between good and evil for even a single moment?

The drunk that most people know (from TV, the neighborhood bar, or, unfortunately, in their own homes) is a vulgar and often violent creature. Is this because drinking generates vulgarity and violence? Obviously not. What excessive drink does is cloud the intellect and incapacitate cognition, freeing the passions of the heart from their internal jurist and regulator. The drunk who beats his wife also desires to beat her when sober; it is only that when sober, his mind is capable of recognizing the folly of the deed and of controlling his behavior. The drunk who shouts obscenities in the street is only expressing thoughts and urges he harbors all the time, but which he usually has sense enough to keep to himself.

But if the intellect stems what is worst in us, it also stymies what is best in us. We all know the feeling of being unable to "find the words" to adequately convey our thoughts, which are so much more subtle than the words and idioms available to us in the languages in which we speak and write. But reason itself is a "language" which captures but an infinitesimal fraction of what is sensed and felt by our deepest selves. To live a rational life is to filter our essentially supra-rational self through the constricting lens of reason. To confine our relationship with G‑d, our people, and our family to the realm of the intelligible is to repress all but a finite facet of their infinite depth and scope.

For 364 days a year, we have no other choice. Our mind must exercise complete control over our emotions and behavior, lest the animal in us rage rampant and trample to death all that is good in ourselves and our world. Furthermore, we need the mind not only as guardian and regulator, but also as facilitator of our highest potentials. It is the mind that navigates the workings of nature, enabling us to sustain and improve our lives in the service of our Creator; it is the mind that recognizes the goodness and desirability in certain things and the evil and danger in others, thereby guiding, developing and deepening our loves and aversions, our joys and fears; it is with our minds that we imbibe the wisdom of the Torah, allowing us an apprehension of the divine truth.

If the mind does all these things within the finite parameters of reason, concealing galaxies of knowledge with every ray of light it reveals and suppressing oceans of feeling with every drop it distills, it remains the most effective tool we have with which to access the truths that lie buried in the core of our souls and reside in the subliminal heavens above.

But there is one day in the year in which we enjoy direct, immediate access to these truths. This day is Purim. The Jew who rejoices on Purim—who rejoices in his bond with G‑d without equivocation—has no need for reason. For he is in touch with his truest self—a self before which his animalistic drives are neutralized, a self which requires no medium by which to express itself and no intermediaries by which to relate to its source in G‑d.

The Jew who rejoices on Purim no longer requires the mind to tell him the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordechai"; he is above it all, relating to the divine truth that transcends the bifurcation of good and evil. For the Jew who rejoices on Purim, the mind is utterly superfluous, something which only encumbers the outpouring of his soul, something which only quantifies and qualifies that which is infinite and all-pervading. So he puts his mind to sleep for a few hours, in order to allow his true self to emerge.