By Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence
The cool thing about the Jewish calendar is that you can plan your holiday way in advance—for example when Purim falls out on a Friday, as is the case this year.
My only past recollection of Purim falling out erev Shabbos was during 2021, when we were still sort of dealing with Covid, depending on how makpid one was with that.
During that year, we limited our interaction with others as it was, so it looked very different at least for our family, when it came to planning a seudah and giving out shalach manos.
In comes a man named Jeremy, someone who actually loves learning about what to do in calendar anomalies such as Purim on a Friday and with excitement in his voice, he explains a concept written about in Gemara (arvei psachim) called “pores mapah u’mekadeish.”
Originally, implementing this concept was for an erev Pesach and it was the solution to combining both a yontif seudah and going into the same meal for Shabbos, without having to hurry the way through the meal to prepare for a back-to-back Shabbos dinner.
Here’s how we’re doing things this Purim: being that the clock jumps ahead one hour this upcoming Saturday night, we will daven Minchah at 5:45 p.m.
After Minchah, we wash and sit down to the seudah.
Since it’s Purim, there’s an inyan of drinking wine specifically over alcohol, and we’ll all gladly partake in that important aspect as well. It is, after all doing the Lord’s work, and we consider ourselves law abiding Jews.
Once we’re done eating an appetizer and drinking some wine, we will cover our table with a tablecloth and the women will go light Shabbos candles.
Kabbalah Shabbos is at 6:40 p.m. and following that is when we continue our meal, saying Kiddush but not reciting the berachah of “Borei peri hagafen” since we’ve already said a previous berachah on wine.
Kiddush is recited, but there’s no washing because we already washed for the seudah, so we’ll all eat from lechem mishnah (with two new loaves of challah) without a berachah.
For bentching on a Shabbos, you add the paragraph of “Retzei,” however there is a dispute whether or not we add “Al hanisim” since we began our seudah before Shabbos and carried the meal into Shabbos.
Others believe that it’s a contradiction to say both “Al hanisim” and “Retzei” for a meal that was started on different days. As far as what we’ll do, that’s still up in the air.
After the meal, the men daven Ma’ariv for Shabbos and we’ll conclude this fascinating practice of incorporating one meal for a Purim yontif and Shabbos until March 13, 2030, G-d willing.
One would think that after spending 44 years on this earth that I’d have seen or heard of most scenarios, but that’s the beauty of Judaism.
It exists differently for each person who practices it. Some might think that they do things the right way as opposed to the next person who does it the wrong way, but I prefer to just leave it as “a variation of the set of laws that we abide by.”
Ours is a religion steeped in tradition. We recite the same prayers that have been said for thousands of years. We celebrate the day of rest by abstaining from technology that didn’t even exist a few decades ago. The concept of resting our bodies and minds in this fast-paced world of ours is not only important, it’s necessary. Listening to people without really hearing them because the phone screen is more appealing than what they’re saying. Being on that one day brings us back to a time before this, when it was a regular mode of communication.
There are reasons for all of the things we do, and some practice to the letter of the law, and some don’t.
For me, it’s a teaching moment for my kids.
They’ve celebrated many previous Purim holidays and this year, we get to incorporate an idea that is brought down in rabbinic literature and instead of this just being an abstract scenario we discuss, we get to implement it into our lives.
This type of excitement over experiencing something we’ve learned about but never practiced conjures up a similar feeling to when I visited Israel during shemihtah. I not only read about the things done every seven years in Israel, but also personally observed the laws and that in itself was a thrilling experience.
We grew up learning about Judaism being a “shalshelet”—an unbreakable bond that connects one generation to the next. This new concept we get to practice is not only one that I know has been practiced by many in the past, but it’s something I can now show my kids so when it comes time for them to head a household, they can recall their first time incorporating this practice into their future seudot.
Wishing everyone a safe, happy, and meaningful Purim.
Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence is a native of the Five Towns community, a mom of 5, a writer, and a social media influencer.
