Beineinu - February 2026

Purim, Pesach, and Packing

When I was in my first year of rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem, this time of year felt like the crest of a roller coaster just before the big drop.

We were taught a phrase for it: Purim, Pesach, and Packing.

Purim would arrive first, loud and irreverent, costumes everywhere, Megillot read aloud in public, Jerusalem briefly surrendering to joyful chaos. You’d barely finish shaking the last grogger before the city would begin its great seasonal pivot. Bakeries would transform overnight. Shelves would empty. Conversations would shift. Suddenly, Pesach—Passover—was everywhere.

Living in Israel teaches you something essential about Jewish time: holidays don’t politely knock. They take over. Pesach didn’t just happen in synagogue; it dominated the streets, the buses, the grocery stores, the national mood. And that was part of the beauty. Just as Sukkot fills the fall with a thousand handmade sukkot on balconies and sidewalks, Pesach reshaped the rhythm of daily life.

Jewish time wasn’t theoretical. It was physical. You lived inside it.

And then—almost without warning—it was time for the third P: packing.

As a rabbinical student, that meant closing out the semester, saying hurried goodbyes, and returning to America for the summer. Three months—Purim, Pesach, and Packing—would rush past in what felt like a single breath. You didn’t stroll through that stretch of the calendar. You clutched the safety bar through it.

I think about that feeling every year when February arrives.

There is a temptation, especially in adult Jewish life, to approach the calendar like a checklist. One holiday down, prep for the next. Get through Purim, then brace for Passover. But the Jewish calendar isn’t asking us to get through anything. It’s asking us to enter—fully, joyfully, without pretending we can slow it down.

This stretch of the year is fast on purpose.

Purim teaches us to lean into joy without apology, to embrace absurdity, to remember that Jewish survival has always involved laughter as much as resolve. Pesach reminds us that freedom is not abstract—it is lived, retold, eaten, argued over at the table. And the quick passage between them reminds us of something deeper still: Jewish time moves whether we are ready or not.

The question isn’t whether the roller coaster will speed up. It always does. The warning gave us the chance to be apprehensive, sure, but also the chance to enjoy what we could while we could.

The question is whether we hold on tightly and enjoy the ride.

Here at Temple Beth Sholom, February begins our invitation to do just that. To dress up. To celebrate loudly. Then to prepare for Pesach not with dread, but with anticipation. To let the calendar carry us instead of resisting its momentum.

Purim, Pesach, and Packing isn’t just a rabbinical school memory. It’s a mindset, a reminder that some seasons of Jewish life are meant to rush by, to fill us up, to leave us a little breathless and a lot grateful.

So, buckle in. The ride is picking up speed!

Rabbi Sam Stern