Purim!!!

The Jewish holiday of Purim has always been a favorite of mine. We eat special cookies called hamantaschen or oznei haman in Hebrew, dress up in costumes and have special noisemakers called groggers for when we hear a certain name! But the mitzvah or commandant for the holiday, is to hear the megillah, more specifically Megillat Esther. This is a scroll in the Hebrew Bible that contains the story of Purim. The story goes: Once upon a time there was a king who was looking for a new queen. To find his new queen he held a fashion show of sorts, and the girls got to show off their beauty. There was one girl named Esther, and Esther and her uncle lived together, and when there was an announcement about this fashion show Esther's uncle urged her to participate. Esther agreed, however her uncle told her under no circumstance should you tell the king you are a Jew. When the king saw Esther he immediately fell in love with her, and she became his Queen. However what Esther didn’t know was that the king had an evil advisor named Haman. Traditionally Jews will use some type of noise maker when Haman’s name is said. One day Haman was walking down the street and was making people bow down to him and Esther’s uncle refused. Haman got very mad and went home to his wife and complained to her and he was so angry that he picked out a date to kill all the Jews in the kingdom. So he took this decree to the king and needed his royal seal to sign this into law. So the king, not reading the decree and trusting his advisor, gave him the royal seal and all the Jews were to be killed on that day that Haman chose. Esther got word of this and was very worried about herself and her people. She decided to fast and she invited the king and Haman to a banquet where she was going to tell the king she was a Jew and out Haman to the king about his vile law against her and her people. When the King heard this he got so angry he demanded that Haman be hanged along with all his ten sons. 

The tradition is that when you read that part of the text you have to say the names of the ten sons in one breath. Another interesting thing is that this year is actually a leap year in the Hebrew calendar which is just the lunar calendar, which means there are two Adars which is the Hebrew name for this lunar month.  While this is typically a holiday focusing on children, I hold this holiday very close to my heart because of the traditions I have with my family and friends; However, those traditions are going to have to change this year because I moved away from my old home and community. But I hold onto the memories like every year at my school from grades kindergarten to eighth grade there would be a special day of programming, which everyone would look forward to the whole year. In lower school we would first listen to the eighth graders read the Megillah and walk around in funny character costumes like Elmo and Superman, then we would have a raffle for fun prizes like a build-a-bear gift card or an ice cream gift card. Those were always the most popular, and one year I won the ice cream gift card which was pretty cool. But there was one tradition that will always stay in my heart, that tradition is the purim shpiels. So in seventh grade your class gets divided into groups and puts on a small play that depicts a part of the Purim story, but the fun part is most of the time they are widely inappropriate and the teachers would do nothing about it. Making one of these plays was definitely my favorite school Purim memory, however the day after we performed them, our school shut down for Covid, and I am sad that will always be part of that good memory but glad that it was the last one before school shut down. ow two years later I am celebrating my favorite holiday in a completely new place with new people and I am okay with that. Ending school so abruptly but on such a good memory gave me a hopeful attitude towards new traditions in my new home.