Purim and shlach manos

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only Jew here. Does anyone else do shlach manos?

Purim is my favorite holiday, and I love making shlach manos. I usually go down to my aunt’s to bake, although this year, I may tweak the hamantashen recipe a little. We have friends who are cholov Yisrael, but I’ve got butter, so I can use some of that instead of the Crisco that I have been using for years, instead of the shmaltz of my childhood. It means they won’t be parve, but I put milk chocolate in the shlach manos as well (I have to order it online to get cholov Yisrael, and it just arrived via UPS today, which is what got me thinking).

My son likes to make them too, and we have been sending small treat bags to his classmates (after all, it’s gift-giving time for kids too), and shlach manos to his teacher and some of the other adults in his school he deals with regularly.

So, in addition to homemade hamantashen, we put clementines, candy, teabags, nuts, and usually some kind of brainteaser puzzle or toy. I thought of using coffee samples once, but they tend to make everything smell like coffee.

We also put together some lunches that we hand out to people who stand with the signs that say they are homeless, and ask for money. I know some of them are scammer, but some of them are legit. We ask them if they want food, and if they say yes, then we give them a bag. So far, only one person has ever turned us down, and I see people stop to eat sometimes.

If someone has done me a big favor in the last year, I’ll bake a loaf of bread, and buy a bottle of wine as well, and make a really big box.

So what do you put in the boxes, or bags, and who do you send them to?

2

Gee, I wish I was your friend! :slight_smile: I don’t keep kosher (enough) in my house, so the only mishloach manot I sent were purchased from the PTA at my son’s day school. Raised money for a good cause, and I didn’t have to worry about offending anyone with my perhaps-not-kosher-enough offerings. For now I only make a few baskets for some friends at work, who don’t expect more than some packaged chocolates and cookies.

eta: I forgot the ones I used to make for one sister - I tried for a different theme each year. One time I filled a colander with pastas, sauce, a spaghetti spoon, and a bottle of wine. Another time I did a picnic basket with a tablecloth, plates and cutlery, jar of pickles, nuts, fancy mustard, etc.

3

zev steinhardt makes hamantaschen each year. I didn’t see a thread for 2015, but check the OP in this thread.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=718311&highlight=hamantaschen

4

PM me your address; I’ll send you one.

5

Quick (albeit a bit hijacky) question: I was given to understand that the takana of chazal is, in the United States, met by general norms of USDA inspection and oversight. Does that not work for the milk used in milk chocolate?

6

Cholov Yisrael is a stricter standard than is absolutely necessary. Many things are kosher dairy, but not cholov Yisrael (albeit, if you ask someone who keeps it, they probably wouldn’t put it that way-- my point it, you can get hekshered dairy that is not cholov Yisrael). All my hamantashen will be cholov Yisrael this year, and the people who keep that standard will be receiving only parve or cholov Yisrael items. I have some candy that is kosher dairy, but not cholov Yisrael as filler for some of the boxes for people who are simply kosher (and for the non-Jews-- every box will be kosher, in case someone offers something to a Jewish friend, who accepts on the assumption that things in shlach manos must be kosher). Even the tea is all hekshered. I bought new baking sheets, which will now be my cholov Yisrael sheets, because I have dairy and parve, but my dairy are not cholov Yisrael.

7

Why can’t you use Crisco? Isn’t that all-vegetable?

StG

8

When I want to make them parve, that’s what I use, but butter gives them a much richer flavor, and I have a cholov Yisrael source. Actually, I use half butter and half Crisco. I also learned that Crisco is one product where generic is NOT just as good. Crisco costs about $0.40 more per batch, and it is worth it.

9

BTW: weird idea, but my husband, and I don’t think it was a serious suggestion, said if I want to make the lunches for the homeless people have stuff they really want, I ought to put cigarettes in them. He’s probably right, though. I could get in trouble for trafficking in them, though, couldn’t I? I don’t charge any money, but I’d also have to be extra sure I didn’t give any to someone under 18 (not a real possibility, though). I hate smoking, and can’t really see myself buying cigarettes, anyway. Still, DH is probably right.

As it is, they have these little packs of tuna salad with crackers that come in boxes, single servings of fruit or applesauce with vitamin C, a small bag of chips, a pack of nuts, a mini can of soda, a lunch pack pudding with calcium, a small stick of jerky with iron, and cookies. I’m thinking for some people it might be all they get for a day, so I try to make them pretty good. Like I said, I know some people are scamming, but not everyone is, and I’ve been giving them out for a while; I always ask “Do you want food?” people can say no.

10

Bricker:

Many prominent Rabbis do hold this to be true, but many others do not.

To the OP: I do Shalach Manos. My family does a “theme” every year. This year, we’re giving Fiber One bars, Three Musketeers, Take Five and cans of 7-Up.

11

That’s a heter given by Rav Moshe Feinstein zt"l. Many people hold by it, but others do not. I keep cholov yisroel, though I don’t hold that cholov stam is actually treif.

I finished my Orthodox conversion after Sukkos, so this will be my first “official” go-round with Purim. Since it’s a mitzvah to give mishloach manos, I will be putting some together, but I’m not too enthusiastic about it. Craftsy baking and assembling arrangements like this is NOT my thing–I was hoping the local kosher bakery would do premade ones but no such luck. So I’m going to be making a very small number and concentrating on quality over quantity.

12

I love baking. I make challah every Shabbes. Not to brag, but I make my hamantashen with yeast dough, and they are the best anywhere.

13

Try a local Orthodox school - many have wonderful parents who will make up baskets for sale, to benefit the children. At my son’s school everything was overseen/vetted by the Rabbi.

And RivkahChaya, thanks for the sweet offer! :slight_smile: You’re a wonderful person, and it’s inspiring to read about all the good you do for the less fortunate.

14

Thanks! I have now found and read Rav Moshe’s responsa.

Which makes me all the more curious to read the opposing view. He does take pains to point out that he himself kept Cholov Yisreal, in spite of his conclusion that all milk sold in the U.S. was safely considered to be from cows.

Can anyone recommend a good discussion of the opposite argument? Not merely someone who says, as Rav Moshe did, he prefers to be machmir, but an argument that milk sold in the U.S. is Cholov Akum?

15

Not that it’s as good as butter, but have you tried butter-flavored Crisco?

StG

16

Ahhh, mishloach manot . . . we’re down to giving two - I just don’t have the energy to go walking all over the yishuv anymore. Purim this year is not going to be exciting - my two oldest are staying with their friends in Jerusalem, and my youngest will be on her IDF base and won’t be coming home either.

There’s a family or two that collect all the left over and unwanted mishloach manot food and take it to a few IDF bases around here. Most of what we receive goes to them - except any halva. All the halva goes to me, and I don’t share!

17

If the rabbis would make a modern-day list of what’s kosher and what’s not, they should definitely put Crisco (and all things similar) on the NOT kosher list. That stuff’s deadly. It’s basically pure trans-fat.

(Actually, I think it’s about 50% trans-fat, based on what I think I know about the manufacturing process, unless they do something to filter out some of the trans component.) (ETA: But it’s got to have some amount of trans in it. That’s what makes it solid at room temperature. Contrast with corn oil.)

(ETA: If you don’t want to use butter, then use margarine. That has some trans-fat too, but I think it’s not remotely as much as Crisco-type vegetable oil has.)

18

Some discussion here:

From the article on page 2-3 of this link (warning: PDF).

19

I just thought of something else cool for my shlach manos. The impetus was finding a bunch of 1gig flash drives for sale in $5 bundles. I was buying some, because I find myself needing small drives a lot, since my laptop doesn’t have a disk drive, and sometimes I want secure transfer. So I bought a bunch of these little drives, and found all the Purim music I could, and have made little collections of Purim music. Right now I’m making a document with all the lyrics in Hebrew (or Yiddish, or in one case Aramaic) and English. I love Purim and can’t wait for it, so it’s fun to have his project to work on while I wait.

20

Play music until you can’t distinguish between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai!”

:slight_smile: