What are you dressing up as for Purim?
If you’re Julie Seltzer — Torah (and megillah) scribe, MJL writer, and challah baker — then the answer is probably pretty self-evident: You’d go as a megillah, the scroll containing the Purim story, as she did last year.
But what you might not necessarily expect is the exactness, preciseness, and — oh, let’s just say it — the utter geekiness with which she would self-design her costume. Take a second glance at her blouse to the left: Seltzer has inscribed every word of the megillah on her costume, from Achashverosh to Zeresh and everything in between. (Her tights, if you’ll notice, are a list of the ten sons of Haman, the only part of the megillah that suddenly gets broken up into two columns.)
Now, Seltzer’s clothing, she claims, is not a 100% kosher parchment scroll (and, she claims in her write-up of the outfit last year, is “laden, I am sure, with many mistakes”). But if there exists in the World to Come the concept of an “A for effort,” this is the best megillah we’ve seen in a long time — although we can’t wait to see what she’s come up with this year to top it.
Check out a ton of close-ups from the costume here.
kosher
Pronounced: KOH-sher, Origin: Hebrew, adhering to kashrut, the traditional Jewish dietary laws.
megillah
Pronounced: muh-GILL-uh, Origin: Hebrew, meaning “scroll,” it is usually used to refer to the scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther, also known as the Book of Esther), a book of the Bible traditionally read twice during the holiday of Purim. Slang: a long and tedious story or explanation.
Purim
Pronounced: PUR-im, the Feast of Lots, Origin: Hebrew, a joyous holiday that recounts the saving of the Jews from a threatened massacre during the Persian period.
Torah
Pronunced: TORE-uh, Origin: Hebrew, the Five Books of Moses.
