Babylonian Rabbi, Rava, said “A person is obligated to get drunk on Purim until he cannot tell the difference between ‘blessed is Mordecai’ and ‘cursed is Haman’.”
After having learned “the full” story of Purim I now interpret the mitzvah to get black out drunk on this holiday a bit differently. You see the story of Esther and Mordecai doesn’t end with the Jews salvation and peace in Persia, no it ends with the Jews salvation and then the total annihilation of their enemies (women and children included). Wow.
Perhaps we drink on Purim to drown out our collective sorrows for past deeds? We drink to the point that we can’t tell a difference between Haman and Mordecai to demonstrate that the same evil willingness to destroy existed with both of them, reducing them to the same person even without the aid of alcohol.
The holiday itself is a bit schizophrenic. A fast leads up to it – a sobering tool for remembrance and then a total loss of consciousness during the day itself – getting that drunk is never fun. Fun and games on the day of Purim itself aside, perhaps we’re meant to wake up with a really bad hang over the day after; nauseated by our existence just as our ancestors must have felt after they committed such atrocities.
Most of our holidays our about remembrance, but I have a feeling that Purim is about forgetting.
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