Unlike other Yomim Tovim, we choose how to spend Purim, more or less. There is only so much variety in how a traditional Jew can observe Pesach or Sukkos, Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur. Purim, however, has that odd combination of no ×יסור מל××›×”, and a healthy--but not overwhelming--number of מצוות that, in practice, hardly take a full day to observe. That means there is a lot of time to do other stuff.
Many people work on Purim, out of necessity or otherwise. Some spend the day distributing funds to the poor. Most are busy delivering משלוח ×ž× ×•×ª or engaged in other forms of revelry, sober or otherwise. And many are preparing lavish feasts, watching the children, and taking older boys to visit their rebbe.
I spend the day reading the megillah.
I had been wanting to own a megillah for a long time. Over 15 years ago, on a trip to Israel, we finally decided to buy one. It was relatively inexpensive, obviously written by someone who wasn’t a trained sofer. (Nubie sofrim always start writing with a megillah since it doesn’t have Hashem’s name and can therefore be erased and corrected easily.) It was on lacquered klaf, which is hardly trendy in the safrus world. So I picked it up for somewhere around $400, which was on the very low end.
I decided then to finally master the entire megillah. With the purchase and the knowledge came a sense of obligation. Since then, I have spent my Purims reading the megillah, over and over and over. And over. Here in Baltimore, Rabbi Juravel coordinates megillah readings for the homebound and those who have emergencies and can’t make it to shul. He personally reads the megillah perhaps 17 times or more on Purim. While I am certain he could write a book about his experiences, I want to share a few of mine.
Each experience is unique, whether it be standing in shul, sweating profusely, surrounded by people intently and intensively following each sound I utter, or sitting quietly in someone’s living room, perhaps someone who can’t even read Hebrew. During one of my stranger shul experiences, one of the gabbaim decided that he too wanted to follow in a kosher megillah -- MY kosher megillah -- while I was reading (!), rather than use a printed Chumash. He couldn’t see the words too well from his angle, so he pulled the megillah towards him. I couldn’t see them too well, so I pulled it back. We spent most of the fifth and sixth chapters in a strange tug-of-war, all the while me trying to keep it all moving along at warp speed to please the crowd . . . .
What all of the experiences have in common is that, for a short while (I think around 22 minutes is my record), I am the most important person in the life of someone I have often never met, and may never meet again. No matter for whom I am reading, I draw strength from the listener. It seems even the most unlettered Jew takes the beloved obligation to hear the megillah with absolute seriousness, which, after all, isn’t even a Torah obligation.
We orthodox Jews have chosen to live apart from others, and, within orthodoxy, many chose to further segregate themselves. They pick a shul where everyone is just like them in age, dress, hashkafa, etc. They send their children to schools where there is little variation in observance level. Let me remind you all that there are all kinds of Jews out there, even within orthodoxy. There are people who are sick, or perhaps don’t fit in to the “mold” that has been made for us. Sometimes I go to the tiny apartments of poor, single people with children who clearly don’t fit the mold. Sometimes I am in homes that are so dirty that I feel I need to shower afterwards. When I go to their home, Purim reminds me that all of these people, too, are part of the Jewish community.
Sometimes the reading is poignant and painful. Family members in intensive care stand around the bed of their dying loved one. The didn’t ask for this, they didn’t ask for me to have to intrude on this most intimate moment. Yet they too wish to hear the megillah. I put on my best chaplain affect, and read for them, listening to the monitors beep in the background, knowing that for someone in the room, it will likely be their last Purim.
Sometimes, people cry when I am done. (Make your own joke here.) I know why they are crying. For some people, the sense that they have not been forgotten on Purim is overwhelming.
A very unusual friend of mine converted to Judaism after being a Catholic, a Mormon, and then a Buddhist. I told him that he needed to hear the megillah, which had already been read in shul. Although he knew the Bible well (better than many native-born Jews, I am sorry to say), he didn’t understand Hebrew. He sat at my dining room table, eyes closed, meditating on the sounds of the words as I read. It was a transcendental moment, for both of us.
Once or twice I have read for someone I didn’t even see or meet. Sadly, he has an unusual phobia of being seen by people. So his family had him sit in an adjacent room. On cue, I was told to start reading, which I did, to what appeared to be no one at all.
Friday Purims present a special challenge. Rabbi Juravel called once with an hour or two left before Shabbos: a couple was in the hospital with a sick child and hadn’t been able to hear the megillah. I was already, shall we say, in my cups, so my wife had to assist me in getting to the hospital. How well I read, I cannot say, but it sounded pretty good to me.
I typically read seven or more times on a given Purim. Most people thank me, some lavish me with shalach-monis. A few have a cooler affect and view me as a public service they are entitled to, and I feel sort of like someone who has come to fix their boiler or deliver their mail.
One of the highlights of Purim for me is a reading I do for many children who don’t perhaps otherwise hear the megillah read. To know that hundreds of people fulfill the mitzvah because of me is quite special.
I have read for very old people and parents with very young people; for “hippies” and the most staunch conformists; the horrifically dirty and the immaculately clean; the silent and the noisy; rabbis and lay people. One day I might read for you.
When I lay down on Purim night, I can’t get the megillah out of my head. I hear it, phrases, words, over and over. It has become part of me.
The year has come full circle. It is time to start the phone calls again. Sometimes I wonder: What will happen when I can’t read? Will I ever need someone to read for me?
