Freilichen Purim And Happy Birthday (Again)!

A few weeks ago, I wished a happy birthday to my little brother Mavis. The thing is...it's his birthday again!

Mavis, as I mentioned in the earlier post, was born on Purim. I already wrote about what it was like the day he was born. But I didn't go into much detail about his bar mitzvah, which we celebrated on his actual birthday - Purim.

He read megillah that morning in shul (and was amazing. I'm not just saying that because I'm his sister. People came up to us afterward and asked why my brother wasn't in the Yeshiva Boys Choir) and afterward he was having a party (costumes optional) about two minutes away. Various boys (Straight Man's friends mostly) were driving Mavis's friends from shul to the party. In fact, everyone was so concerned about getting all the guests there...we all sort of forgot that Mavis needed a ride, as well. I guess everyone assumed he'd be getting there somehow - that it wasn't up to them to figure out how. After all, he was the bar mitzvah boy, right?

Mavis ended up having to go over to another one of the guests who hadn't left shul yet and asking if he could please have a ride to his bar mitzvah.

The party itself was majorly fun, especially since my family was all dressed up in period costumess (colonial and stuff).

The chagiga tonight was also really fun. Highlights were:

• A girl wearing a sign that said, "Bernie Madoff stole my costume."
• A girl dressed up as a michlala girl - humongous poof and all.
• Zimri and Kozbi (that one was a little bit gross).

I sort of love it when people dress up as random things from Tanach. I think it's hilarious and so clever.

On the bus ride back, I discovered that I do have the abilitiy to sit next to a random person and talk. So I am not hopeless in social situations, after all! How relieving. (Joke.)

Also - I'm going to Israel tomorrow (what?!). For a wedding. I know, it's random and kinda weird and I'm missing two days of school and coming back to two midterms and a senior thesis, but what can you do? When a best friend from childhood gets married, everything else seems to get put on hold. Sort of. Not as much when it's in a different country across the ocean and you sort of aren't really sure that it's actually happening and won't be sure until after it's over when you say to yourself, "...Whoa. Was I just in Israel?" And even then, you're still not sure. Best to take pictures so you can prove it to yourself.

This post is random enough, I might as well end it with a Purim Torah joke. I used to know lots of these because the Rabbi of my fourth grade class gave us a whole sheet of them, but I only remember a few and only one of those that I remember is actually funny (in my opinion. Not laugh out loud funny. Just cute. They're all rather groan-worthy, really).

How do you know that Vashti was fat?*

In sixth grade, I remember we made fun of the Purim tape by going around saying in squeaky, whiny voices, "Vashtiiii...bring me a cup of caw-fee...!!!"

Anyway, I must go to sleep now, but happy birthday (again) to Mavis and a Purim Sameach to all my readers!!! That includes the lurkers, too! :)

*'Cause Vashti astah mishteh nashim! (Vashti was made of two women! [the real translation is Vashti made a feast for women])

We're All In This Megillah

(Hat tip: A Friend)

(NOTE: Girls singing, but not a clue who they are and you can't see them in the video or anything. So, uh, guys, listen as your own discretion)



Have an easy fast tomorrow!

A Different Kind Of IQ

(You may print this out to take or use a separate sheet of paper)

1. Read everything before doing anything.

2. Put your name in the upper right hand corner.

3. Circle the word “name” in sentence 12.

4. Write the date in all capital letters in the upper left corner of this page.

5. Draw five small squares under your name.

6. Put an X in each square you drew.

7. Put a circle around each square.

8. Put a circle around all of sentence 7.

9. Put an X under your last name.

10. On the back of this paper multiply 733 by 419.

11. Draw a rectangle around the larger of the two numbers in sentence 10.

12. Loudly call out your first name when you read this so your teacher can see who got this far.

13. If you think you have followed directions carefully up to this point, call out, “I have!”

14. On the back of this page, add 109.34, 1984 and 8965.

15. Put a circle around your answer, then a square.

16. Count from one to ten backward in a normal speaking voice.

17. Punch three small holes in the top of this page with your pencil point.

18. If you are the first person to get this far, call out, “I am number one!”

19. Write the numbers from 1 to 10 on the line. Underline all even numbers.

20. Say aloud, “I am almost finished.”

21. Now that you have finished reading carefully, do only sentences 1 and 2.


...If you have failed this test, I highly recommend you try paying more attention to directions. :)

Three Whole Hands

Not only is it Rosh Chodesh Adar, but it is also my little brother Mavis's English birthday. These two are inherently related because Mavis has always been a rather Adar/Purimish sort of person. In fact, his Hebrew birthday is Purim. He's always been very happy, a bit of a troublemaker, and certainly in the business of making people laugh. One of my mother's favorite stories about him was when my parents took him to meet the principal of his new school for kindergarten. The principal, who already knew Straight Man as, well, a yashar sort of kid, smiled over his desk at little Mavis and said, "how old are you? Five?"
Mavis shook his head.
"No?" The principal asked. "How old are you then?"
Mavis looked up at the rabbi before him, raised up his palm - fingers spread out - and said, "I'm a whole hand."
The principal looked at my mother and said, "He's not like Straight Man, is he."
It wasn't a question.

Mavis is certainly his own breed, but we all love him for it.

He's the only sibling I really remember visiting in the hospital as a baby. I remember visiting my sister Trademark vaguely, but I remember the white powdered doughnuts Straight Man and I got to eat more than I remember actually seeing my baby sister (I actually don't remember her at all - only the doughnuts). What I remember most about visiting Mavis as a baby was how much he looked like a bobblehead doll. Straight Man, who was nearly five at the time, then proceeded to go to school and tell everyone that he had a new baby brother named Achashverosh.

It was a strange purim that year. My brother, sister, and I woke up to a house with no parents (at least, the way I remember it). Somehow we knew what had happened before we were told. I remember Straight Man and I stumbling down the stairs to our babysitter and asking in rushed, excited voices, "did they go to the hospital? Huh? Did they?" I remember exactly the blue of the stairs and the emptiness in the house that wasn't quite emptiness. It was more like hugeness. The sun was shining brightly through the window and there was snow. Lots and lots of snow. Then we got hoisted off to friends and stood around awkwardly unsure what to do with ourselves in all the excitement. At some point our father came back and someone read megillah to him in a bedroom.

(By the way Ima, I'm sorry if I got any of that badly wrong. That's how my mind tells me it went)

Two years ago, it was my brother's bar mitzvah and instead of doing the parsha on shabbos, he lained megillah on the day of his actual birthday. Then we had a costume party and it was exceedingly cool. For this year, my brother has already started practicing to lain again (he did it last year, too), so when you start hearing that in my house, you know Purim's only 'round the corner.

Anyway, happy birthday Mavis (who is now three whole hands!) and chodesh tov to all my readers! :D

Why I could not write about the terrorist attack at Mercaz Harav

There are so many amazing posts out there about people's reactions to the tragedy at Mercaz Harav. So why did I not contribute? Why did I direct my attention elsewhere? Why did I write about other things and not about the one thing that truly deserved to be written about - that called out to every one of us, begging us to write?

Maybe it's because what happened at Mercaz Harav is too tremendous for me to have coherent thoughts which I can actually type out. I'm sad, I'm upset, I'm distraught, even, but I can't add to what has already been written unless I reiterate the way this event has struck me and the rest of Am Yisrael. But who needs reiteration?

Mercaz Harav is a place many Americans know, so it is not a surprise that the attack there elicited such a strong reaction from the Jewish American community. But for me, instead of wanting to cry out, instead of transcribing my emotions to paper as I do on occasion, I turned inward. I became extremely introspective and have been barely able to address this issue in a somewhat coherent fashion until right now, and even now I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It helps no one to start describing the feelings of despair - not when everyone else is feeling it.

And yet, I feel as though if I don't write about the event, I'll be overlooking it. So perhaps this counts as my obligatory post on the tragedy of Mercaz Harav. Or perhaps it does not. Perhaps it's a cop-out, because I'm not really writing about the event itself, but rather, I'm writing about writing about it.

I hope you all understand why I could not write a post sufficiently describing the pain Am Yisrael is going through and why I could not contribute to the outcry. I just don't know how to do it. For me, I'm much more action-minded at times like these. Instead of mourning, I get angry. I want to teach all the terrorists a lesson. But since that is all fantasy, the only thing to do is try and deal with it the best I can, but the best I can seems to be not addressing the issue at all. Maybe I'm just afraid of crying or of anything that makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't know.

All I know is, now, more than ever, we need to mean it when we say Am Yisrael Chai.

And now I must return to grappling with the contradiction of Mi'shenichnas Adar Marbim B'simcha.

Adar sameach, everyone.