Purim was especially fun for me this year as it was the first year we have been able to attend as a family since my time in the Navy and the arrival of the twins just a few years ago. In times past I’ve been away from home and missed out on many of the holidays so this makes any time I get to spend with the kids more special to me. This year Son One and Son Two (influenced I’m sure by advertisements for “The 300”) went dressed as a Spartan and a Persian, the Daughter went as Hadassah, and the Twins were both Superman. When they are a little older, I will try to explain the Jewish connection to Superman and how Siegel and Shuster were sons of Jewish immigrants and how they based the story of young Kal-L on Moshe being put in the basket to save his life.
This year we had an early service for the younger kids, which I think was a great idea over what we’ve had in the past. It was nothing too formal (if any thing about Purim can be considered formal). Rabbi, in his trench coat and fedora, holding an impromptu microphone was giving interviews to costumed visitors in his role as reporter for the Shushan Times.
At one point we rolled out the Megillah and all the parents held it up down the middle aisle as Rabbi read from it (paraphrasing into age-appropriate English). As he was reading Twin #1 saw the two rows of grown-ups holding the scroll between us and started striding down the middle as if he was a king (or Lord Vader) with his cape gently billowing behind. Twin #2, however, spent this time jumping off the step to the bima. At the end of the young children’s service the kids' mother took the twins home and I stayed with the older kids at shul and we sat through the actual Megillah reading. I was surprised that Son One stayed with me throughout the entire service instead of needing to “go to the bathroom” (which years ago I deciphered to mean “hang with his friends in the atrium”). Son Two, though, decided he needed to “use the bathroom” early on and was mortified that I had the gall to come out to the atrium and remind him where he needed to be.
This year we had an early service for the younger kids, which I think was a great idea over what we’ve had in the past. It was nothing too formal (if any thing about Purim can be considered formal). Rabbi, in his trench coat and fedora, holding an impromptu microphone was giving interviews to costumed visitors in his role as reporter for the Shushan Times.
At one point we rolled out the Megillah and all the parents held it up down the middle aisle as Rabbi read from it (paraphrasing into age-appropriate English). As he was reading Twin #1 saw the two rows of grown-ups holding the scroll between us and started striding down the middle as if he was a king (or Lord Vader) with his cape gently billowing behind. Twin #2, however, spent this time jumping off the step to the bima. At the end of the young children’s service the kids' mother took the twins home and I stayed with the older kids at shul and we sat through the actual Megillah reading. I was surprised that Son One stayed with me throughout the entire service instead of needing to “go to the bathroom” (which years ago I deciphered to mean “hang with his friends in the atrium”). Son Two, though, decided he needed to “use the bathroom” early on and was mortified that I had the gall to come out to the atrium and remind him where he needed to be.
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