Which Country Drinks the Most Alcohol?

No. Mardi Gras seems to be a "let's let it all hang out" festivity before taking on the strictures of Lent, etc. Sort of like pigging out on chocolate cake before reporting for your Atkins class.

Purim is a holiday commemorating the Jews triumphing over the machinations of the evil Grand Vizier Haman in ancient Persia. Haman wanted to annihilate every single Jew in the kingdom and paid the king (Ahasueros) to let him do it.

The wife of Ahasueros was the lovely Queen Esther, who was a Jew--but Ahasueros didn't know that. His former queen was Vashti, a haughty woman of noble Persian lineage. Vashti refused to dance naked in front of the King's friends one night when he drunkenly requested that. While he was drunk, an advisor (probably Haman) suggested that he put her to death for refusing his request, lest all the wives of the kingdom get ideas that they could disobey THEIR husbands. And so, she was executed.

When Ahasueros regained sobriety, he was aghast at what he'd done. An advisor counseled him to have all the fair maidens of the land gathered up and each would spend a night with him. And then he'd pick the one he liked best. The young woman Esther, who was actually married (to Mordechai, a member of the council of Sages, who had raised the orphan Esther), was caught up in this gathering. Once he saw her, Ahasueros wanted no other. She became Queen.

When Esther heard of Haman's plan to kill all of her people, she approached the king unbidden to speak to him, which was a crime punishable by death. But G-d put grace into the eyes of the king and he then pointed his scepter toward her, inviting her and taking away the penalty of death for approaching him uninvited. He wanted to know why she would risk her life to approach him unbidden.

She said she wanted to invite him to a banquet, and then she'd explain. So she invited her husband the king and Haman to a banquet. At the banquet, the king asked her again what was wrong. She said that "someone was threatening her life." The king raged, "Who would dare to threaten the Queen?" She pointed at Haman, and said, "That man! That evil Haman!" She then revealed for the first time that she was a Jew and that Haman sought to annihilate her people.

Ahasueros was enraged and stormed out into the garden. While he was gone, Haman rushed over to Esther's reclining couch (nobles ate while reclining on couches) to try and talk his way out of this. But then he tripped and fell onto Esther.

Ahasueros returned to find him on top of her. "You would assault the queen in my very house?!" he thundered. Guards came in to cover the face of Haman, a sign that he was condemned. He was hung on the very gallows he had prepared for Mordechai (he hated Mordechai because Mordechai refused to bow to him).

Ahasueros gave her and Mordechai permission to countermand that order. All the evil people who were prepared to kill the Jews were themselves killed. So, the day that all the Jews in the kingdom of ancient Persia were saved is celebrated as Purim.

And to simply revel in the fact that they are alive today because of what happened back then, Jews dress up on costumes, act silly, write jokes, exchange baskets of goodies, and the men--only the men--drink "until they can't tell Haman from Mordechai."

Sooooo---it's not related to Mardi Gras at all.

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