Looking back at Purim

Purim was always a fun holiday when my sons were enrolled in the nursery program at the JCC.

Until then, I knew nothing about this joyous holiday nor about the origin of the expression “the whole megillah.” But I’m a quick study, and before long, I was searching for poppyseed filling and rolling out dough to make hamantaschen with my boys.

One of my colleagues at school left a couple of packages of hamantaschen on the big table in the teachers’ room for the staff to enjoy last week. My lunch break comes after everyone else’s, but I usually overlap with Tony, our school police officer. When I arrived, he was smiling and happily enjoying his second cookie, with crumbs on his lips and sticky jam on his fingers. “Who brought the hamantaschen?” I asked, but he had no idea. He did know that they were tasty, however.

Tony asked me what the occasion was, assuming I must know since I immediately knew the name of the three-cornered, jam-filled pastries. I explained that it was Purim and did my level best to recall the story, remembering what I could from the time when my now 30-something sons were preschoolers.

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“Well, it’s a lot of fun for the kids,” I started as I recalled how they dressed up in costumes and paraded around the JCC building, wandering through the maze of offices, little kings, Mordechais, and Esthers, wearing their crowns, trailing their capes. I remembered that Haman was the villain in the Purim story, and that every time his name is mentioned in the Megillat Esther, people drown it out with noisemakers called  groggers. I remembered that Queen Esther is the heroine, for it is she who coaxes her husband the king to rescue the Jews. I told Tony that all the little girls loved to dress as the queen for the day of merriment.

But key details of the story eluded me, so I talked instead about how much fun it was for me to receive a surprise Purim basket from a friend, filled with homemade hamantaschen and treats. I added, “If I lived in a very Jewish neighborhood, I would probably prepare baskets for others.” Tony knows that I work out at the JCC all the time and teased me a bit, asking whether I’d be making treat baskets for anyone. I demurred, but he got me to thinking.

That day after school, I refreshed my memory by reading the chapter about Purim from a book that I often turn to, “The Complete Family Guide to Jewish Holidays.” It’s a wonderful text that has enlightened both my culturally Jewish husband and me, ever since I bought it at a long-ago book sale at the JCC. It’s so useful, filled with explanations, stories, recipes, and crafts, that I later bought a used copy online to send to my son and his wife when they were newlyweds.

I read the dozen or so pages about Purim and was reminded of why “the whole megillah” has come to mean a long, complicated account of a detailed story. No wonder I couldn’t remember all the details and the tricky names like Ahasuerus. I also was amused to learn that the comic dramatization of the Purim story is called a Purim spiel. In the Middle Ages, people dressed in costumes, walked through town, and parodied the Megillah, a form of walking theater, a tradition known as the Purim spiel.

A rabbi lives with his delightful wife and kids on the corner of my street. They’ve been there only a couple of years, relative newcomers compared to my husband and me, whose time in our house in the shadow of the JCC measures in multiple decades, not just years. When the family moved in, I reached out and befriended the wife, who returned my welcome gift of a plate of brownies with a warm peach cobbler that Jim still raves about.

I had this kind woman in mind for a gift basket, or more properly, mishloach manot, the traditional sending of portions. I filled a little bag with some kosher chocolates and a pretty kalanchoe flower in a cute ceramic pot, then delivered it on Saturday morning with a card, setting the purple gift bag on the welcome mat where they would see it upon returning from services. Perhaps it is meant to be sent in secret, but as I was a few days late, I wanted to make sure the family knew what it was. I also felt obliged to sign the card, not so I could get credit, but so they would be sure it came from a friend and was safe.

My research about Purim also taught me that there are four main mitzvot, or obligations of the holiday, including mishloach manot, but also hearing the Megillah, giving charity to the poor, and eating a festive meal. While it’s not a mitzvah to bake a batch of hamantaschen, I’m sure Tony and my other colleagues at school would be happy to devour them. I might even manage to tell the whole megillah. And I can enlighten Tony about all the possible interpretations of the cookie. Maybe the filled pastries represent Haman’s pockets, stuffed with bribe money. Maybe their shape recalls Haman’s hat or perhaps his ears. After all, in Israel the cookies are known as oznei Haman, or Haman’s ears, a reference to a past custom of cutting off a criminal’s ears before being hanged. A simple cookie that carries the whole megillah of a story.

Susan FitzGibbon of West Orange is a teacher. She has been a member of the JCC for nearly 35 years and absorbed her knowledge of Judaism from her husband and her two sons’ years at the JCC preschool.