Talmud Takes Mixed View on Drinking

To the editors:

The report "Survey Confirms Alcohol Stereotypes" (News, Feb. 12) discusses the attitudes of various religious communities towards alcohol use and implies that the Jewish community supports drinking through quotes such as, "In fact, on Purim, you're supposed to get drunk." (Purim is the springtime holiday that commemorates deliverance from national obliteration, and is celebrated with merriment and satire.)

This quote likely refers to the line in the Talmud (Megillah 7b) that is frequently used by gleeful college students who seek to justify self-destructive excesses through appeal to religious texts:

"Rava said: A person must become so intoxicated on Purim that s/he does not know the difference between 'cursed is Haman' and 'blessed is Mordechai.'"

These gleeful students would do well to keep on reading, because the Talmud text immediately continues:

"Rabbah and Rabbi Zeira had a festive Purim meal together, and became intoxicated. Rabbah got up and cut R. Zeira's throat. The next day Rabbah asked for mercy, and R. Zeira was revived. The following year, Rabbah said to R. Zeira, 'Come, and let us have a festive Purim meal together.' R. Zeira said to him, 'A miracle does not occur every time.'"

The editors of the Talmud followed Rava's one-liner with this story in order to warn against the dangers of excessive alcohol use and to express strong ambivalence or even opposition to Rava's line itself. Thus, to portray Judaism as unequivocally alcohol-friendly is a distortion of the Jewish tradition.