Mardi Gras and Purim

In the United States, Mardi Gras is primarily associated with New Orleans. In French (once the predominant language in Louisiana), Mardi Gras means literally “Fat Tuesday.” It is so called because of the custom of eating rich foods, such as pancakes fried in oil for dietary indulgence, on the last day before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. In England and in British Commonwealth countries, it is called “Pancake Day” and is celebrated by pancake races–especially in New Zealand, where some years ago my husband and I watched a pancake race outside Christchurch Cathedral. Participants run while holding a frying pan containing a pancake.

Incidentally, our visit to New Zealand was prompted by the fact that my maternal grandfather was born in Auckland in 1864. Americans are often astonished to learn that there was a flourishing Jewish community in Australia and New Zealand already in the mid-19th century. (It comprised mainly Anglo-Jews who were lured Down Under by the Australian and New Zealand gold rushes.)

Mardi Gras has both a religious and a secular dimension. Even a Jew can acknowledge the day from a secular perspective by wearing a New Orleans T-shirt and green, gold and purple beads.

Mardi Gras is the epitome of carnivals in the U.S. and in West European countries.

And it is no accident that Mardi Gras occurs calendrically close to Purim–the Jewish version of carnival. (In fact, carnivals are a universal phenomenon.)  Purim falls exactly one month before Pesach, which coincides with Easter because the Last Supper was a Seder meal right before Good Friday and Easter Sunday. So in most secular-calendar years, the 40 days of Lent begin roughly 10 days before Purim.

From a religious point of view, Mardi Gras is actually Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday (which is the first day of Lent in the Christian calendar). On Shrove Tuesday, Christians are invited to “shrive” (confess) their sins and receive absolution in anticipation of Lent and Easter. 

Many Americans (Jew and Gentiles alike) are unaware of the religious significance of Mardi Gras–just as they often fail to realize that Halloween likewise originated as a religious holiday. Why the emphasis on rich foods on Shrove Tuesday? Because it immediately precedes the austere Lenten period during which Christians are required to abstain from eating meat.

In fact, the very word “carnival” comes from the Latin phrase carne vale–meaning literally “meat, farewell!”

The carnival as a socio-cultural phenomenon is found in most world cultures. The word itself emphasizes the sociological aspect. To forgo meat is to make a one-day exception to western cultural norms, thereby reinforcing them. In the same way, carnivals often select the humblest individuals on the socio-political totem pole–the lowest-ranking boy and girl in the community–to turn society on its head by being treated as King and Queen for a day! 

The carnival thus psychologically reinforces social norms; on all other days of the year, people in class-stratified societies would subordinate themselves to overlords by giving allegiance to a King and Queen or whoever was at the top of the social heap!

So what has all this to do with Purim? Purim is a perfect example of the same phenomenon.  According to the Megillah (the biblical Book of Esther), the native Persians of Shushan were ordered to shower honors on Esther and Mordechai (who as aliens – which means “outsiders” or “others” – constituted the lowest social class in any culture), while Haman and his wife Zeresh, who were right at the top of Persian society, were brought low.

Psychologically, the ultimate aim of carnival celebrations is to reinforce the actual socio-political norms of the culture in question. In particular, the purpose is to persuade people to accept the stratification of society and the obligation of kowtowing to whoever is “above” you.

Throughout most of history, this entailed ultimate subordination to the rule of a King/Queen at the “top.”  In modern times, the American, French and Russian revolutions have changed all that. 

But Mardi Gras and Purim still remind us of the course of human history.

JUDITH ROMNEY WEGNER (jrwbrownedu@gmail.com),an editorial consultant to the RI Jewish Voice, is a retired pro-fessor of Judaic Studies with law degrees from Cambridge and Harvard Universities and a PhD in Judaic Studies from Brown University.