MUSINGS

A Purim Story for the Ages

 Yitti Berkovic

I am the person least likely to win the “most creative costume” award at a Purim party. 

I like costumes that come in a box, with all accessories included. I like costumes that don’t require sewing or hot-gluing or snipping fabric into a perfectly round circle – costumes that don’t remind me that I failed “cutting” on my kindergarten report card.

Maybe that’s why I cling to that one time – more than thirty years ago (!) – when the world tilted off its axis for a split second, and I won first place at my school’s Purim carnival for “most original costume.”

A Purim miracle!

But as miraculous as it was for me to take top honors, my win was a result of much bigger miracles taking place that Purim, miracles that gave me the idea for the best costume ever. 

It was the year 1991.

The weeks leading up to Purim were frightening for my eight-year-old self. For months, there had an ominous drumbeat of war for both Americans and Israelis as Saddam Hussein, the tyrannical leader and infamous sonei Yisrael, plotted and conspired against us. 

I eavesdropped on a lot of conversations amongst adults, and eventually the information filtered through:  A country I had never heard of – Iraq – had invaded Kuwait – another country I had never heard of – and the United Nations had set a firm deadline for the Iraqis to withdraw: January 15th, 1991 – or else…

As I write this article, I didn’t have to Google the date of that deadline – because I could never forget it. As a kid who was trying to make sense of news that was scary but too complicated to process, that date was burned into my consciousness as I lay awake worrying: Was World War III going to break out on January 15th?

I came to understand the stakes as the deadline loomed:

If Iraq didn’t withdraw from Kuwait, the United States vowed to attack Iraq.

And if the United States attacked Iraq, Saddam Hussein vowed to respond by attacking Israel – with terrifyingly dangerous chemical weapons.

For the little third grader that I was, this chain of events didn’t compute. Why was Iraq picking on Israel? They had nothing to do with this fight! I remember asking my father, “What does Israel have to do with Iraq?” and my father shrugged his shoulders and said soberly, “Iraq hate Jews,” like that was an acceptable answer.

But I was still a naïve little kid. Enemies of the Jews existed in the past. During the Holocaust. During the Spanish Inquisition. During the Purim story. Not in my lifetime – right?

When I davened Shemoneh Esrei – which I had only just learned – I remember whispering to Hashem in English, “Don’t let Iraq attack Israel. Change their minds. Don’t let there be a war.”

But January 15th came and went, and Iraq refused to withdraw from Kuwait. To my horror, America kept its promise, and together with a UN coalition, began its attack on Iraq. 

I knew what was going to happen next. 

It was the only time in my childhood that my parents brought a television into my living room so we could watch the evening news. I saw the images of Israelis huddled in their sealed rooms with their gas masks. Those sealed rooms were small and cramped, often improvised and hastily prepared by families just like mine. Thick layers of tape sealed every crevice. Windows were covered, doors barricaded, as families braced themselves for the air raid sirens and the inevitable impact of war.

It was the scariest thing I had ever witnessed.

But pretty soon, it would also be the most miraculous.

The threats became reality. The Iraqis shot their scud missiles toward Israel. But their scud missiles were met in the air by Patriot missiles supplied to Israel by the United States – and the scud missiles were intercepted before they could do any harm. With the Patriot missiles’ distinctive white contrails streaking across the sky, few scud missiles landed in Israel, and those that did rarely caused harm. Casualties were astonishingly – and miraculously – few.

My eight-year-old self was awed.

Maybe this was the first time I had realized that the Jewish nation still had enemies, but I was also seeing for the first time that Hashem is always on our side. In a world that was scarier than I’d ever realized, Hashem was protecting us, and the Patriot missile was only one tool in His arsenal.

That’s when I knew exactly what I wanted to dress up as for Purim that year: a Patriot missile!

My mother shares my non-creative DNA, but she loved the idea and bought me an oak tag, a funnel, and some silver spray paint, and wished me the best of luck.

With confidence I shouldn’t have had, I got to work: I wrote PATRIOT MISSILE in red, white, and blue across the oak tag and applauded myself for my artistry – even if the letters weren’t all the same size and weren’t quite in a straight line. Then, I spray painted the funnel and placed it on top of my head. Maybe I looked more like a teapot than a weapon of war, but I didn’t care. I loved it, and so did the judges.

I won first place at the carnival on Taanis Esther, but the real miracle happened on Purim morning. When I woke up to get ready to hear megillah, I heard the incredible news: a ceasefire had been reached! The war was over!

My older brother – a wise ten-year-old – helped me understand the magnitude of the miracle that the war ended on Purim: Iraq is located in Persia. Iraqis are descendants of Haman’s nation. Just as Haman’s plans to eradicate the Jews were thwarted on Purim, so were Saddam Hussein’s! 

Wow.

That couldn’t be a coincidence.

The joy I felt that Purim had little to do with all the candy I was given, or the dollar bills I collected. (Nor was my joy related to my costume – by that point, my oak tag was crumpled, and my funnel hat was leaving silver streaks on my face.) The joy I felt was my relief that Klal Yisrael was okay – because Hashem was holding us close in the same way He had millennia ago. 

I am thinking a lot about Purim 1991 as I prepare for Purim this year.

No – I don’t plan to make my kids Iron Dome costumes from scratch, and it would take a miracle for my kids to win any costume contests with me as their mother.

But I’m thinking about that Purim because I remember my fear back then as I tried to process the details of a war I didn’t understand.

The events on October 7th – and the events since – are far more tragic than the events of the Persian Gulf War, but from my own experience years ago, I know my younger kids are listening and absorbing and processing – understanding some details but misunderstanding others.

And I see the questions I once had (and often still have) in their eyes: 

Why do they hate us?

Why is Hashem letting this happen to us?

How much longer will this last?

I don’t have the answers, so I tell them the story of the Purim miracle that took place when I was eight years old. 

I tell them about my big costume win (they are highly skeptical), and I tell them about the miracle of a Purim triumph when the scuds did not harm the Jews, and the war came to an end on Purim (they are awed – just as I still am).

And together, we hold on to the hope that this Purim too will be a Purim of miracles, a Purim when Hashem reveals Himself to us with nissim they will one day describe to their own children, in another Purim story for the ages.