“I Do Not Understand a Single Word of What I Wrote in My Book”: Rav Kook, Saul Lieberman, and a Literary Mishlo’aḥ Manot Exchange
The festival of Purim, with its customs and traditions, has long constituted a broad and fertile field for a vast body of research, folklore, and ritual practice associated with the “Jewish carnival.” The drinking of wine, the wearing of costumes (which have no foundation in early sources and, in the view of many scholars, were influenced by the Venetian carnival), the use of noisemakers for the purpose of “blotting out Amalek,” and the practice of mishlo’aḥ manot have all added…