As a kid,Purim was my favorite holiday. Every year, I would put on the costume I’d been waiting weeks to wear (usually something pink and flouncy), tingling with excitement and anticipation. Our shul always had a full roster for the holiday, including a musical Purim shpiel, a costume contest, a raucous Megillah reading and, most importantly, glistening candy apples the size of meteors for every child in attendance. To this day, I can still remember watching the words of the Megillah illuminated on a large projector screen, the room practically shaking with the chorus of “boos!” and belly laughs. Giddy from adrenaline, sugar and exhaustion, I thought of those smug trick-or-treaters who rang our bell every October. Poor souls. They had no idea what they were missing. Naturally, when I had my own children I couldn’t wait to share the excitement of Purim with them (and, of course, take painfully adorable pictures of them in their costumes). When my oldest son, Ezra, was around nine months old, we brought him to his first Megillah reading dressed up as a peapod. Ever the zen baby, he took in the colors and sounds around him with curious calm. But at the first swell of shouts and rattles following Haman’s name, my little guy jumped in terror. His face crumpled and he began to wail.
My husband and I exchanged an adoring look—“Isn’t that sweet?”—and I took him out of the shul until he calmed down. It was one of those moments I knew would make a cute anecdote years later, when he was old enough to enjoy Purim the way I once had. A few years later, I brought Ezra, his two older sisters and his little brother to a Purim bash at our shul. That year, we dressed up as “Hawa-yids”, complete with hula skirts, leis, straw hats and Hawaiian shirts. We were the very picture I’d had in my head of what a family celebrating Purim should look like, and I knew my kids were going to have a ball. The balloon-filled room swarmed with other costumed children and their parents, all shouting over the music that blasted from the speakers. To our right was a bounce house, rocking back and forth from the children jumping and shrieking inside. To the left, a group of rowdy fifth-grade boys raced each other on sit-scooters, while their friends whooped and cheered them on. As we made our way through the room, we were jostled from all sides by the dense traffic of bodies. It was overwhelming, even for me, so I wasn’t surprised when I felt Ezra, who had recently been diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, wrap himself around my leg. “Don’t worry, Buddy,” I yelled to him over the noise, trying to loosen his body a bit. “This is fun! Isn’t this fun?” But he only grabbed on tighter. I felt a mild frustration, but I swallowed it. Ezra just needed a little bit of time to adapt himself, and then he’d be fine. He’d have a great time, just like all the other kids.
My girls ran to join the line for the bounce house, and my toddler demanded that his father take him to get a giant black-and-white cookie. That left me and Ezra, immobile, as I felt the blood supply in my leg begin to slow. Through a break in the crowd I saw a table across the room where younger children were making Play-Doh hamantashen. It was a quiet, sensory-friendly activity, not too overwhelming. And look: There was one of Ezra’s friends from preschool. Perfect. “Come on, Ez,” I said. “Let’s go do Play-Doh with Chaim Shalom.” Tentatively, he unwound himself and walked with me toward the table. I started to relax, glad that we’d gotten through the hard part without any fireworks. And then, the audio system went haywire. The music suddenly cut off, and the speakers started making a jarringly loud buzzing noise, like a swarm of angry bees rubbing up against sandpaper. Then it stopped. Then it started again. Then it stopped. And started again. One of our tech-geek friends ran to fix the problem, while everyone else looked at each other in bewilderment and slight annoyance at the interruption to the festivities. Ezra however, was neither bewildered nor annoyed. He was petrified. With the first explosive crackle from the speakers, his body drew taut, as if someone had poured ice water down his back.
Screaming and trembling, he latched onto me again, this time with a death grip. I tried to calm him, but every time the buzzing sound picked up, he would jerk spasmodically, like he was getting an electric shock. My husband ran to us and scooped Ezra into his arms, trying to hold him close, but Ezra kicked and flailed, beyond consolation. By then, the speakers had been fixed, but Ezra had dissolved into a complete sensory meltdown. For a long, tense second, my husband and I looked at each other with the same shellshocked expression. Then, I snapped into action. “You’ve got the others,” I said, grabbing Ezra. “I’m getting him out of here.” I rushed out of the room with my hysterical son in my arms, and didn’t stop until I had gotten to the car. I buckled Ezra into his seat and pulled out of the parking lot, unsure of where I was going, just desperate to get him as far away from there as possible. Within a few minutes, the quiet movement of the car lulled Ezra to sleep. The tension that had seized my back and shoulders slowly dissolved, and I could breathe deeply again. But the frustration I’d pushed down earlier reared up now in full-fledged resentment.
All I wanted was for my son to be able to be b’simchah on Purim, to be able to have the same happy memories that I had. Why did it have to be so difficult? Didn’t Ezra deserve the same as any other kid? I realized, as I looked at the clock, that I still needed to hear Megillah; I had been so busy with the kids that morning I hadn’t gotten a chance to get to shul. I had a vague recollection that a late-afternoon reading was going on at a smaller shul across town, and I called my husband to let him know I was going. There were no more than 30 people in the shul, which was in the rav’s basement. I had met him a few times before and he welcomed me warmly as I slipped into a seat with a sleepy-eyed Ezra in my lap. Some of the women sitting near me smiled at my son, who was one of the few children there. The Megillah reading was quiet and calm, almost sweetly so, and by the end of it, Ezra was happily waving his tiny plastic grogger every time Haman’s name was read.
As everyone prepared to leave, the rav walked up to my son. “What’s your name, tzaddik?” he asked. “Ezra,” my son replied breathily, his eyes wide with awe. “You were very well behaved when I was reading the Megillah. You must make your Mommy very proud.” Ezra beamed. “You come and see me again, okay?” said the rav. “Okay,” replied Ezra, nodding with assurance. Then the rav shook Ezra’s hand. As he walked away, Ezra stared at his hand, as if it had suddenly turned to gold. “He shook my hand!” he said to me, wonderstruck. “Can you believe it? This is the best Purim ever!” At that moment, I realized that simchah on Purim comes in many forms. For some kids, the noise and chaos of the holiday are the picture of joy. But for others, like my Ezra, it’s a quiet Megillah reading, a few treats, and a handshake from a rav. I also saw that, as a parent, my own definition of simchah had changed. Once upon a time, it had been a princess costume and candy apples. But now, simchah meant seeing my child b’simchah—no matter what it looked like.