Don’t Get Drunk on Purim – Here is Why

by Rabbi Mendel Itzinger, Director of Igud Mesivtos V’Yeshivos Lubavitch

My grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivka Zajac (affectionately known by her students as “Morah Rivka”), was six years old when she and her family escaped communist Russia on one of the famous “Polish trains”, emigrating to the United States of America.

Growing up around 770, (young enough to be on her father’s side of the Mechitza), she merited to be part of so much during the early years of the Rebbe’s Nesius.

One Simchas Torah, whilst standing next to her father in the upstairs hallway, near the door of the Shul, she noticed a Chossid sitting off to the side, his joyous participation in the Pre-Hakofos Farbrengen had left him noticeably unwell.

Frightened, she tugged at her father’s sleeve, and pleaded with him to take her to a different part of the Shul; further away from this individual.

“Tatte, er iz shikker” she said. Father, he is drunk.

At that moment, the Rebbe came out of the shul and into the hallway. And upon overhearing her comment, the Rebbe looked directly at the young girl and said with a gentle smile: “Ah Yid vert nisht shikker, ah Yid vert freilach” – a Yid does not become drunk, a Yid becomes joyous.

Semantics are important: A Yid doesn’t get drunk! A Yid says L’chaim and becomes joyous. True, at times they may say too much L’chaim, but they never חס ושלום become drunk.

What is the difference between being drunk and saying too much L’chaim? Isn’t it ultimately the same thing?

It is not the same thing because the intent is everything! The key distinction is ‘Why’ are you drinking?

Alcohol relaxes a person’s inhibition and allows them to rise above their day-to-day troubles and “stresses” (albeit temporarily). Yet, it goes without saying that one does not need to get full-on ‘drunk’ to relax.

So why would someone get ‘drunk’? A person who gets drunk is actually trying to ‘lose their self-control’. They are not drinking a small glass of wine merely to relax and allow themselves to temporarily forget their stress; rather they are actively trying to lose their unique ability for self-control — for the sole purpose of being in a state of “no control.”

Imagine, a Medaber, a creation whose entire מעלה over an animal is in the fact that they have ‘sechel’, thereby knowing how to be in control of themselves and not act impulsively, trying to lose that very advantage!

Even a person who never intended to get so drunk, all they wanted was to lose a bit of their inhibition, for the purpose of personal pleasure, is in a smaller way doing that same thing — trying to lose a part of their ‘Sechel’. Becoming fully ‘drunk’ is just a more exaggerated level of that.

But a Yid who says L’chaim is totally different because when drinking a L’chaim a Yid is trying to achieve the exact opposite. A Yid is actually trying to bring his Sechel exactly to where it naturally should be.

Naturally, by virtue of his Nefesh Elokis, a Yid wants to focus on understanding Hashem and doing what He wants. It is only the ‘Nefesh Habehamis’ with the help of ‘Oilom Hazeh’, that distracts a person. This poses an emotional challenge for the Yid because, by nature, a person always wants to feel ‘congruent’.

That means that a person naturally wants to do the right thing (at least what they feel is right). We want our actions to live up to our ideals. So, when we become absorbed and distracted by everything the world throws at us, it leaves us with a void inside, a feeling of something not right.

As could be imagined, the incongruence caused by the constant struggle between our two-competing energies, says the Alter Rebbe, is a source of unhappiness within a Yid. The pain is especially acute when a person follows the desires of their Nefesh Habehamis and Yetzer Hora.

One of the ways to rise above those distractions and get ‘in touch’ with the true reality – that of the Nefesh Elokis – is for a Yid to say L’chaim. Saying L’chaim allows the natural effect of the wine to quiet the ‘noise’ in our brains – the voice of the Nefesh Habehamis, enabling the person to analyze where they really could and should be, and perhaps even take a ‘Hachlota’ that will serve as the first step to get them to that place.

It is this clarity of remembering: what is real, who we really are, and what we really can achieve through quieting the Nefesh Habehamis and making our Nefesh Elokis the reality, which creates the congruence that enables us to be truly “Freilach.”

Even when the effect of the ‘mashke’ wears off, and the ‘Nefesh Habehamis’ comes back with a vengeance, the person at least remembers what they understood during those moments their true desires, and can work toward that goal.

Better yet, if they took a practical Hachlota, then they already have the first part of the plan in place.

True, a person may at some point say too much L’chaim for their body to handle, and obviously, they can no longer even focus on his Nefesh Elokis (or anything for that matter…), but are they ‘drunk’? Chas Vesholom!

Drunk means active loss of self-control. Freilach means in full control of your true self!

This is the reason why on Purim, despite a Yid having said so much ‘L’chaim’ that they no longer know the difference between good (Mordechai) and bad (Haman), they have nevertheless still not lost their ‘self-control’.

On the contrary, because of the great Gilui that exists in the world on this holy day, a Yid is able (with the help of something physical to quiet the brain) to perceive a level where Hashem is the only reality, and “good vs. bad” i.e., anything related to Tzimtzum — even at its highest levels — is no longer an object to them.

But the above can only be achieved if you are saying L’chaim for the right reason! In other words, it is all about your ‘agenda’ – what is going on in your head before you even begin pouring the wine; Why are you even thinking of drinking?

Only if your entire purpose of saying L’chaim is in order to get in control of your real true self, will the wine make you ‘Freilach’.

Stated clearly: There is no Chiyuv to get drunk on Purim! Getting drunk is below the dignity of any person, let alone a Yid! A person who just wants to get shiker should not drink!

There is a Chiyuv to get to a state where you are fully in touch with your Nefesh Elokis. If you say L’chaim with that agenda then I wish you “L’chaim Velivrocha”, may it be a Hisva’adus Peilos.

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Final note: There are varying Ho’raos from the Rebbe of whether one may say L’chaim more than four times on Purim or not. Bochurim for whom I currently serve as Mashpia know where I stand on this matter. But it is up to the Hanhola and Mashpi’im in each individual place to guide.