Best of all, our school actually hosted a Night and Day Megillah Reading for us and even a school-wide Purim Seudah, led by Rabbi Sharfman himself so that we didn’t have to worry about finding a place. Still, what was fantastic about this Purim, wasn’t just getting to be in Eretz Yisrael, but it was also the Sharfman’s Purim Chagigah. Our Chagigah began with a Masquerade Ball and plenty of music and lively dancing:)  Each apartment had chosen their own theme for their costumes. Following the dancing, every apartment made a presentation – many together with little skits – explaining their costumes and the reason they chose that theme. The costumes ranged from the varied and colorful to the costumes showing the closeness and unity of the girls in the apartment.
The amount of talent displayed during the evening could certainly put Hollywood to shame. The creativity that went into the writing and performing of the skits was unbelievable! The skits went the full range from hilarious to hysterical and beautifully displayed the wonderful Achdus we all share in Sharfman’s.

We were divided into two teams and each team was given a bag with exactly the same materials and a mission: Use all of the materials to present the most beautiful Queen Esther!!! Our models, Shaina Katz and Sara Rochel Jaffe were great sports as toilet paper, aluminum foil, costume makeup, ribbon etc were used to dress them up!!! Once our beauty pageant was finished, the hamantashen were ready and we enjoyed them warm – straight out of the oven!!!

The evening was devoted to the festivities of the month, getting us in the true spirit of Purim. Our Chonechet revealed to us her secret, age-old family recipe for hamentashen, which we obviously can’t reveal outside her home. We got to work, eagerly combining the ingredients, and formed delicious, professional looking hamentashen. We chose from a variety of fillings including strawberry jelly, white and brown chocolate, and peanut butter. We meant to save them for Shabbos at the least, but we couldn’t help ourselves, as the super enticing scent wafting out of the kitchen, got the better of us. Our favorite was of course the “Reese’s” flavored hamentashen (a perfect blend of chocolate and peanut butter)-they were out of this world! We capped of the evening by designing for ourselves the first contribution to our Purim costume. Using feathers, sequins, glitter, and a variety of other supplies, we were able to create and decorate our very own super sparkly and funky face masks. They looked absolutely adorable! We ended the evening by curling up on the couch and shmoozing the night away talking about what we had learned from Rabbi Green and Rabbi Kahane to just our plans for Pesach. Thank you so much for an unforgettable Bayit Cham- looking forward to next time!