Right before the reading started, the man doing the leyning made the usual request for no talking during the reading because of the requirement to hear every word of the Megillah. I love any excuse to not talk, so that totally works for me. Usually, the only noise heard during the Megillah reading is the racket made by the graggers and other noisemakers when Haman's name is read. But yesterday, when Haman was mentioned for the first time, I started to connect the dots: we only make noise immediately after Haman's name, not during--we don't drown him out. Instead, we hear his name as we must hear all the other words in the story. We register our displeasure, but we don't erase him.
This seems like an effective way to face our own personal stories, which are (most likely) dotted with names, places, and events we'd like to blot out. The problem with that is, if we erase those parts of our stories, the narratives lose a lot of their significance. I mean, where would the Purim story be without Haman? If we take him out of the mix, there would be no villain and therefore no need for the heroism of Mordechai and Esther. The opportunity for triumph would be lost if we took out the crisis.
When I think about my own story, I would LOVE to take a huge eraser and rub out my entire four years at college, which I will always associate with the birth and rapid rise of my eating disorder. I live in a city with lots of universities, and as I walk around and see all the undergrads and campus buildings, I wish I could do that part of my life over in a totally different way. But since I can't, I just do my best to have very little present-day connection with the university I attended. Whenever it comes up in conversation, I would love to drown it out with a gragger!
But maybe this is not the best way. After all, without the struggle born in those four years, I never would have started the journey I'm on--one that has given me insights and skills that I would never want to trade for an easier path. Maybe the best approach is Purim-style: hear the hard parts, register your displeasure, and appreciate them as necessary for the journey.
Just as we can't effectively erase parts of our narratives, we also can't erase parts of ourselves. We all have elements to our personalities that we dislike or find shameful: the judgmental, envious, fearful, spiteful, resistant, insecure parts (to name a few). It's probably fair to say that we are each a little "Haman-esque" in some ways, just as we also have within us elements of Mordechai and Esther. I cannot even count the number of times I have thought, "I hate that I'm like this!" when I catch myself exhibiting any of the above traits. But maybe these elements of our personalities should not be hated and drowned out; maybe they need to be heard and better understood. Sometimes our most difficult attributes need the most love and compassion before we are able to see how they fit into the Big Picture that is us. We say we "hate" Haman, but we also have to acknowledge that he gave us a key piece of our collective narrative and provided us with one of our first experiences of national triumph. What would we have missed out on learning, if Haman had never entered the picture? Perhaps there is also much to learn from our seemingly less desirable traits, if only we can approach them with gentle curiosity.
A local artist named Deb Koffman expresses this much better than I ever could, in her piece titled, "Some of the Parts." She has given me permission to include it here. You can see more of her work at http://www.debkoffman.com. Hopefully this piece inspires you to integrate all of your story, and all of your parts!
thank you rachel, for your words, your story, your writing... and for the great gift of making meaning visible. i deeply appreciate that my art spoke to you. blessings, deb
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