Why Is It Important To Drink On Purim?

During the Jewish holiday of Purim, there are many mitzvahs, but the most important of all is drinking. This harmless topic of drinking on Purim has to lead to a huge argument of many Rabbis saying their views on the issue as well as disagreeing with other scholars. All of this argument started just with five words which were “לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת אוֹתָ֗ם יְמֵי֙ מִשְׁתֶּ֣ה וְשִׂמְחָ֔ה”, which was from the Book of Esther 9:22. This phrase means “They were to observe them as days of feasting and merrymaking”. Also the words “משתה ושמחה” say that you need to drink to be happy. The controversy began because many rabbis were confused whether this phrase was saying to drink a lot of wine, a little bit of win, or just to celebrate. Although there were many
The Gemara says “Rab said that you are obligated to drink on Purim until you can’t tell the difference between the blessed Mordecai and the cursed Haman”, which shows that the Gemara thought that you should get very drunk on Purim so that you can’t tell the difference. The Gemara then tells a short story of the Rab and Rabbi Zerah where in short the Rab got very drunk, killed his friend Zerah and then the next morning he came back to life because the Rab had mercy. This story shows the extent of drinking on Purim. Showing that on Purim people should not drink too much to the point that you should kill one of your friends, but you should still drink to the point where you are drunk. I think this story is very important because it shows that people should be careful of drinking too much because you won’t only hurt yourself, you could hurt one of your best friends. The next important work on this topic was Sefer
Also, this shows that everyone can have their own interpretation of this topic even I have my own opinion. I believe that drinking is a very important part of Purim, but it should not overpower all of the other great celebrations and mitzvahs of Purim. I think if I were to really agree with any of the famous rabbis of the time I would choose Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried. People who are planning to drink on Purim before should limit themselves to how much they should drink, so they don’t get extremely drunk. You should still get drunk because it says in the Gemara to get drunk so you can’t tell the difference between Haman and Mordecai, but instead of getting drinking a lot you should just drink until you get drunk and sleepy because I agree that when you are sleeping, you can’t tell the difference between anything especially Haman and Mordecai. Limiting how much to drink is actually helping to complete the mitzvah because the mitzvah is to have fun and if you get really drunk you might not enjoy the