节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-03-15
难易度:Medium
关键字:essential, hiss, lavish, relative, celebration, lot, synagogue


























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Hello, everyone.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
Welcome to Studio Classroom.
We're glad you could join us today for the second day of our lesson, Saved by
the Queen.
Yesterday we learned it was the Jewish people who were saved by Queen Esther.
And this happened a long, long time ago, around 470 B.C.
It's an exciting story, and the best part about it is that it's true.
And it's important that you understand the story because today we will look more
closely at a Jewish festival that is based on the story.
A festival called Purim.
But why is it called Purim?
Open up your magazine and let's find out.
(Music).
Saved by the Queen.
The festival is called Purim because the villain of the story, Haman, cast the
pur, or the lot, against the Jews.
But he failed to destroy them.
An essential part of the festival is reading the Purim story.
Jews usually go to the synagogue for this special reading.
The reading is noisy, too.
Whenever Haman's name is mentioned, people boo and hiss and shake noisemakers.
Adults and children come to the reading in costume.
Sometimes they dress as characters from the story.
But many also just dress up as their favorite story or movie character.
(Music).
(Chinese).
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, so far this festival actually sounds really fun.
Let's look at the story in greater detail now.
We read here: The festival is called Purim because the villain of the story,
Haman, cast the pur, or the lot.
So that's why it's called Purim.
Right. It all centers on the idea of casting lots.
And what is casting lots?
It was a method for deciding what to do.
But when you cast lots, you are leaving the decision up to chance.
You're not making the decision yourself.
Yes. When I think of lots, I think of chance - you don't know what the result
will be.
Actually, when many people cast lots in the Bible, that was their way of finding
out what God wanted because they didn't believe in chance.
However, there were a few times in the Bible when the people casting lots didn't
believe in the God of the Jews.
And people were casting lots with Haman maybe believing chance was deciding the
results.
Well, we've talked about casting lots meaning chance, but what does it look
like?
Well, there are many ways to see how "chance" will decide something.
A common way people do it today is by drawing straws.
No, not drawing like with a pencil.
Here drawing means picking.
People still do this; they take pieces of straw, one of them is shorter than the
others.
Whoever picks the short straw is chosen.
And this is also called drawing straws.
It's a way to decide who should do or won't do something.
Well, back to the story of Purim, Haman was the villain in the story.
What is a villain?
The villain of a story is the bad guy.
In many movies, there are heroes and villains.
If you look at Disney movies, there is a villain who is against the hero.
They provide a lot of the conflict for these stories.
Now that you mention it, I feel like now is a great time to talk about the words
protagonist and antagonist.
But first, protagonist. All right.
This is good when talking about a story.
Yes. So stories will have a protagonist.
That is the person you are supposed to like.
Here she may not be perfect but, you, as an audience, want that person to come
out on top.
You want them to have a good ending.
And then there are the antagonists of a story.
They are usually a big source of conflict for the protagonist.
For example, in the story of Esther, she is the protagonist, and Haman is the
main antagonist.
Well, Haman cast the pur against the Jews.
He was casting lots to see when they should destroy the Jews.
But he failed to destroy them.
And we read here that an essential part of the festival is reading the story of
Purim.
That's right. It's a very important part.
Well, right now it's time for us to join Steve and Ken in the Information Cloud.
They're going to talk a little bit about catcalls.
At a performance or sporting event, emotions can run pretty high.
When people like what they see, they'll likely cheer and applaud.
A good word to learn is "encore," which is French, meaning again.
If you go to a concert and enjoy what you hear, you can shout "Encore!" at the
end of it to demand an additional performance.
OK. What about when you don't like what you hear or see?
You could call out: Boo... boo.
And that's called a catcall, which is a loud sound one makes, as Steve very
effectively demonstrated,
to express disapproval or displeasure at a certain performer, speaker or athlete
at a public event.
The first known use of catcall was back in 1693, members of the audience would
indulge in uttering cheering sounds to express their disapproval of a specific
stage actor.
The shrill sounds were meant to be heard on stage so the targeted actor would
know that he's not appreciated.
Over time, catcalls became like a weapon for an audience to vent their
displeasure and disturb the performance.
(Chinese).
Thanks, guys.
Well, booing and hissing isn't all the festivalgoers do while they hear the
story.
We read that adults and children come to the reading in costume.
That means they dress in clothes that are not their usual clothes.
Right. If you are going somewhere in costume, you are dressed as a special
character.
You could say "They dressed up in costumes," or "They're going somewhere in
costume," with no S at the end.
Well, we do have more to learn in the next section.
But first, we want to continue to a short video we started yesterday.
This video will help us understand more of the meaning of Purim.
Let's watch it now.
Mordechai enacts an annual holiday with feasting, giving gifts to poor and food
to friends.
Appropriately, the holiday is called Purim -- literally, lots that are cast.
Commemorating how Haman's worldview that everything is determined by chance, was
overturned by the Jewish ideal that God is present.
Chekhof once said, that if a rifle lies above the mantel in Act One of a play,
it had better go off by Act Three.
The mark of a good playwright is that no plot element is superfluous; everything
ultimately has a role.
And the same goes for The Great Playwright in the Sky:
everything we humans do has its role in the play we call Life but not
necessarily in the way we imagine.
The Book of Esther does not mention the name of God.
And that's the whole point.
The message of Purim is that God is here, even when He doesn't seem to be.
God's presence in history is felt, not just when the sea splits or when Devine
Fire descends upon a mountain in full view of the entire nation.
God is present in the everyday workings of life and history as well.
We all have choices to make, that is how we cast our lots in life.
But what happens after we make the choice is no longer up to us.
Purim demonstrates that God is in complete control, even when He remains behind
the scenes.
Without the fanfare of miracles, in the space between human choice and the
ultimate result, The Master of The Universewill yet have His say.