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Dear Miriam,
My synagogue is a place where people tend to give mishloach manot very generously on Purim. However, I am a single person living alone who has a lot of dietary restrictions. How can I politely say “no thank you” to someone trying to give me treats that will just go to waste?
Signed,
Turning down the ‘Taschen
Dear Turning,
Giving mishloach manot (gifts of food given to friends on Purim) is a mitzvah (a commandment) for the person doing the giving. While it’s not specifically a mitzvah to receive said gifts, by accepting the basket of fruit or the baggie of hamentaschen or the slightly too sticky container of candy that several people have probably already touched, you are enabling someone else to fulfill their mitzvah. Take the food. Do it graciously. What happens to it from there isn’t really the concern of the person doing the giving, nor should it be.
Everyone who has ever given mishloach manot expects there to be some waste involved. No one can finish every last granola bar before Passover! That’s not to say you should go around throwing away food with abandon, but this is a case where really and truly the thought counts more than whether you eat the thing. If, by contrast, you were ill and someone were to bring you a dinner that you couldn’t eat, you would want to let them know. In that case, you having food to eat is the whole point, whereas in this case, the giving and the merriment and the spirit of generosity are the point – not whether you eat the hamentaschen.
After you accept the mishloach manot, maybe you’ll find some things within some of them that you actually can eat. Depending on where you live, consider whether you are likely to pass unhoused people over the next few days, and if so, bring some of the more portable snacks with you and offer them to people in need. If your neighborhood has a community fridge or pantry, you can drop snacks off in there. You can regift food in a Buy Nothing group or to a neighbor or, depending on the volume, to a local school. Probably the slightly squished hamentaschen will need to be thrown out, unfortunately, as it’s much harder to regift food that is homemade than food that is packaged, but again, this is just the cost of mishloach manot.
One of the other required mitzvot for Purim is matanot l’evyanim – gifts to at least two people in need. Giving food away as above is one way to meet this requirement, though more commonly, people give money. Since food sounds like it can be rather fraught for you, think about how you can elevate this other mitzvah in order to make the day meaningful. Give yourself something to counteract the bad feelings associated with food waste and the annoyance of being given gifts you can’t enjoy by helping others. Make a meaningful gift to an individual in need or an organization that helps people in need, and encourage others to do the same. And then just do your best to enjoy whatever Purim has to offer, edible or not.
Be well,
Miriam
