Have you ever celebrated Purim? It is really a fun Jewish holiday and a great spring board for studying one of my favorite Biblical heroines, Esther. This holiday begins next week, starting at sundown on March 9th until March 11th.
What is Purim? Wikipedia says this:
”Persian Empire, resulting from the Babylonian captivity (after Persia had conquered Babylonia), from Haman’s plot to exterminate them, as recorded in the Biblical book of Esther. It is characterized by public recitation of the Book of Esther, giving mutual gifts of food and drink, giving charity to the poor, and a celebratory meal (Esther 9:22)”
In years past, our church would get together and read the story of Esther. The children would dress up, and each time Haman’s name was spoken we would clap, stomp or try to drown out his name. When Mordecai was spoken, we would cheer. I think the adults had more fun than the children! Even though we are not celebrating with our church this year, I still wanted to incorporate a few things into our school and home next week. Here are a few things we will be doing and some of resources we will be using and things we will be doing:
Studying the Book of Esther. I am planning on studying this book of the Bible all week with my children and discussing different things from it. I am mainly going to focus on character lessons from the book: pride, courage, loyalty, moral strength, prayer and fasting. I use For Instruction in Righteousness
I have also found these lessons that I will print out for my girls to work on (click on lesson title to view):
This study I found here will also be good for our devotional time together and I will probably pull questions from it.
Making Hamantaschen. This is a traditional jam filled cookie that is supposed to represent Haman’s hat. These can be labor intensive, but I have found a simple step by step tutorial for making them here. I use jelly or jam that I have on hand instead of making a filling.
Read Books: I found a few books at the library on Purim for my 1st grader, and we will also be reading these books:
Hadassah: The Girl Who Became Queen Esther
Watch a Movie: I love Netflix and am excited that they carry one of the best renditions of Esther and on DVD! This one is the most accurate and easy enough to understand and it is put out by Trimark (this is the one we like
) , and we will also watch One Night With the King
(If you haven’t read the book
, you should!) just because we love it so much! I think Veggie Tales has a movie out about Esther too. Study Persia: I will print out a few maps of Persia (now Iran) and have the children color and label them. I use these resources for most of the Bible maps we study: Deluxe Then and Now Bible Maps
Crafts & Songs: Danielles Place has some great ideas for making a crown and scepter. We will role play king and queen for the day just for fun. I also love the Purim version of “Zacchaeus was a Wee Little Man “listed at the bottom of the page. Instead it is “Haman Was an Evil Man”. Love it!
Outreach: One of the themes of Purim is giving to the poor. I am trying to find a soup kitchen we can volunteer at next week. We always make a gift basket to give to the needy for Purim, so we will do that as well. I may try to see if our local food pantry needs help as well.
Beauty Treatments: My girls and I have fun doing facials and manicures, just like Esther received in preparation for the king. We will do that on the weekend when my son and husband have some man time.
Other: We use A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays
Happy Purim! I hope you have found this helpful! If you choose to do any of these activities or have additional ideas for celebrating, I would love to hear about it!
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We keep G-D’s Feasts too!!! Nice to meet ya!
I absolutely love Esther. I’m also taking Daniel (hence the Babylon reference). They are both awesome, inspiring, convicting, exciting, stories. I had not read either book before. In fact, I’m somewhat embarrassed I didn’t know who Esther was until a month ago. But, anyways… They are both very good. I’m enjoying Daniel more, but I think it is her videos from it. You can watch the videos ($3.99 a session) at lifeway.com or itunes.
Thanks so much for these resources. I am taking Beth Moore’s Esther study right now actually. . .
Reading that made me kind of sad that we aren’t celebrating it this year. Maybe we shoud…
What a helpful post. I was just talking about Purim with one of my jewish friends who organizes a carnival for Purim at her temple. Thanks for the great resources!
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