PHOTOS: Chabad of Bay Ridge parties for Purim

Planned and run by one family, Purim at the Chabad of Bay Ridge was an art-filled experience for all who attended on Sunday, March 23.

Over 50 people arrived to celebrate the holiday, which honors the story of King Ahasuerus and the Jewish Queen Esther who defeat the evil Haman’s plot to kill the Jews of ancient Persia. In this legend, the lack of an open miracle is balanced by the circumstances made available to the heroes, as told in a Hebrew scroll known as the Megillah.

The team that helped Rabbi Tzvi Stroh put it together? His wife and kids, with his beloved wife, Dassie catering food for the entire party.

With a theme generally planned the summer before, the story this year was honored through art. Even the reading of the scroll was enhanced with multimedia elements, with pictures projected up on the wall, to help people keep up with the story and the Hebrew language.

Complete with balloon sculpting, caricatures and an art display, this year’s theme, said Stroh, reflects the fact that “sometimes in our daily life we don’t see the complete picture.”

Like an artist beginning a painting, the logic follows that the string of events leading up to the success of this event was helped by a “hidden hand,” so that, only after completion, could the process that put the art together be seen and appreciated.

The Chabad of Bay Ridge is located at 373 Bay Ridge Avenue.