For the week ending 15 March 2003 / 11 Adar II 5763  Feeding the
Ducks  by Rabbi Reuven Lauffer The Color of HeavenArtscroll  I
once saw someone counting empty wine bottles with great glee.
No, it wasnt the day after a fraternity bash. It was the day
after Purim. "Wow," he said with awe. "It must have been some
party!" It was. And thats what was so strange.  We Jews are not
known as "boozers". Even when I reached my teens I remember that
one of the highlights of Shabbat morning was having a small
glass of cherry brandy. Not exactly the stuff that drinking
binges are made of.  And yet it seems that the day of Purim is
designed to help us make up for lost time. A years worth of
sobriety needs to be rectified. But to get drunk on a Holy day?
Yes, and thats the beauty of Purim.  The Talmud teaches there
are three ways that a person reveals his true, inner self: in
personal money matters, when he gets angry and when he gets
drunk. In his dealings with others he projects the kind of
personality he would like seen.