Have you ever cried during Megillat Esther? Have you ever cried during your kid’s second grade play? Have you ever cried during your kid’s second grade play because your kid’s classmates were acting out Megillat Esther? Have you ever cried during your kid’s second grade play because your kid’s classmates were acting out Esther 8:9–14? Do you know which part that is? That’s the part when it was decided hey wait a second, I don’t have to tell you, I’ll just paste it in.
Ok, so that’s like the biggest font that has ever existed, but I am soooo not going to try to mess with it right now. Just deal with it, please.
I got that from my most favorite text-of-Tanach website, of which I am quite fond in spite of the large number of apparently extra and pointless bits of punctuation, and in spite of the very (very) outdated translation.
So which part of this little excerpt had me bawling my head off, or threatening to, rather, when the little second graders started acting it out? No; not the part where we got the good news that we would be able to defend ourselves and that the king was on our side. No; your friendly neighborhood lunatic former historian of Jewish antiquity started weeping under a torrent of emotion when….
…the kids acted out verse 14, that is, when a few of them started running around giving out scrolls, i.e. being the messengers who delivered the life-saving decree. That’s what made me cry.
Ok, to be fair, I was crying a little bit already, first of all because seeing my kids (my twins, in this case) putting on a deliciously adorable performance always makes me a bit teary, and second of all because I could hardly take my eyes off R, whilst thoughts like the following insisted on coursing through my head:
This isn’t how she used to be when she was putting on plays. This is not how she used to be at all. [I am not going to share details. But it was not how she used to be.]
What if she has a stroke right now, while she’s on stage? What if I think she’s having one but I’m not sure? Would I run up on the stage in the middle of the play, in front of all these parents and administrators and teachers? Then what if she wasn’t having one after all? I’d feel like an idiot. But what if she was? What if she does? What if she’s starting to have one right now? What if she has one in the bathroom one day and it’s hours before anyone finds her? Do the teachers watch her all the time? How do I make sure someone is watching her all the time?
This is not how she used to be.
Hey Miriam, you have another kid in this play too, you know. Why don’t you watch her for a second. It’s not her fault she didn’t have a stroke.
Oh God. YS is exactly how she used to be in plays. In fact she’s exactly how she used to be, and a bit like R used to be. I can’t watch her. It hurts too much.
Well that’s not fair. There I go again, practically resenting YS for being healthy and normal and progressing along the same line she’s always been on, instead of progressing, or not progressing, along some completely unknown vague undefined f*ed up nonexistent line that may or may not kill her and this isn’t YS’s fault, for God’s sake watch both of your children, you overemotional overstressed melodramatic high strung doomsday moron mother.
Hey, you know, I should have made sure to get this on video, because if R dies, I’m going to be upset that we didn’t video her saying her part. I’ll bet someone else got it though. I should get a copy.
Damnit, I’m doing it again! Watch the play, Miriam, just watch the play!
Heheh.
Right.
So, as you can see, I was already a bit (perhaps a teeny tiny bit overly) emotional even before they went and acted out 8:14, but when I saw those cute little kids in their elaborate costumes running around pretending to be the messengers, a big button inside me got pushed, real hard, because for half a second I imagined the real messengers and the real Persian Empire and the real, live, actual human beings who were part of these events. It’s those little bits of realia that sometimes come floating through a narrative in Tanach — like the threshing-floor in Ruth, and the sheep-shearing in Bereishit 38, and all sorts of other things that escape me right now — hardly central to the plot, but they form the backdrop, and they anchor the people and the events in a particular time and place, and at least to me, that’s what makes it all come alive. And being a (former) historian and all, and for that matter a historian of the era that formed my entire religious existence, well, I get a bit emotional at times when Tanach feels alive. Not just Tanach, mind you. Anything from antiquity, and to a lesser extent the Middle Ages (not modern so much; perhaps the romance is lessened when it’s not as far back?), but certainly Tanach in particular. And so there I was. Tears streaming down my face, staring and beaming at R, beaming at YS, gripping G’s arm as images of Persian messengers danced through my head, whispering to G “I’m totally crying”, and having him smile in response while continuing to watch the stage, and then yanking on his arm and whispering “No, I’m serious, I’m about to bawl my head off, look at me”, and having him glance over at me and see the tears and laugh a little bit in that particular way, and then continue to watch the stage. And of course, the girls did a great job with their parts, and they did a great job in the dance they were in, and after each of their lines I whispered loudly “That was my kid!” and there was general laughter from the people around me (hardly anyone heard, don’t worry), and it was just all too cute and adorable and they got their Chumashim and they’re growing up so fast and making me so proud, and hopefully that small neurological matter won’t continue to circle around my brain forever and color my appreciation of everything they do.
Anyway, here they are with their Chumashim, until such time as I decide I should not have posted a picture without whiting out their faces, at which point I will white out their faces and then say here I am, accompanied by outlines of their heads (still in costume):
So that’s them. Gorgeous, I know. Thank you Hashem, for miracles large and small.
Personally, I believe that turnabout is fair play.
the guilt over/tied to the healthy sib is ridiculous. And unavoidable. I regularly smack myself around for it, but that stuff is like a horn o’ plenty.
There’s always more, pouring out.