Like any good Jewish boy, I spent this Easter Sunday attending church.

It’s a long-standing tradition, as trumpet players, especially trumpet players who can nail Baroque chorus-backing descants, are in high annual demand, regardless of circumcision-status.

And while I, technically, was paid to be there, I suspect I’d have gone either way, as I’ve come to enjoy the spectacle of Easter services. While varying quite a bit between denominations, all seem to possess an underlying performative quality that appeals to my closeted love of musical theater. Harmonized singing! Costumes! Bellowing organ music! Under the spell of it all, I start to imagine the priests are quietly soft-shoeing beneath their flowing robes.

At the same time, much as I enjoy them, these Easter observances always seem completely foreign to me, to my understanding of religion and prayer. Weaned on years of synagogue attendance, I tend to think of prayer, even when mandatorily conducted in a group, as an intensely private, internal, meditative thing.

Yet, just a few days ago, we Jews also celebrated a thoroughly over-the-top holiday, Purim. Based on the book of Esther, Purim lauds Queen Esther of Persia for owning up to her Judaism and standing up to her husband, King Ahashueras, to save her people from massacre at the hands of Haman, Ahashueras’ sinister right-hand man.

It’s a unique story from a theological perspective, not just for its female protagonist, but also because, unlike in Judaism’s other holiday stories, where God steps in to save the day, in the story of Purim, it’s the Jews who have to pull it together and save themselves.

Beyond social-action implications, however, Purim is also a night of obligated revelry, an occasion when each Jew is Talmudically advised to drink “ad d’lo yada”, or “until one can’t tell the difference” between the names of Haman and Esther’s uncle Mordechai. (Or, at least, until one stops wondering exactly how undercover Esther’s Judaism could have been, considering she had an uncle named Mordechai.)

Besides ritualized liver damage, and the obligation to give to the poor (“matanot l’evyonim”), Purim also features “shalach manot”, the obligation to send gifts of food to others. Jews and goyim alike are doubtless familiar with one of the most traditional sent gifts: Hamentaschen, triangular cookies filled with preserves.

As I was growing up, my mother would bake up a batch of Hamentaschen each year, working off a stained photo-copy of her own mother’s recipe. My brother and I would help, cutting the flat sheets of dough into circles, spooning filling onto the center of each, folding them into triangles (careful to pinch the corners, so they wouldn’t unfurl while baking), and brushing on a thin layer of egg to turn the finished crusts golden brown.

This year, as in year’s past when I’ve been on the wrong coast to pitch in, my parents sent along a handful of the finished Hamentaschen. And, lest I might otherwise doubt their love, each individual cookie was wrapped first in Saran Wrap, and then in aluminum foil, before all of them were placed in a Ziploc bag, further ensconced in bubble wrap, and boxed up for urgent overnight FedEx delivery.

Apparently, it’s not just religion you inherit from your parents, but borderline OCD as well.