*Halacha:
Men and women are obligated to hear the entire megila chanted twice
(once in the evening and once in the day time) from a kosher parchment megila.
That's it. If your attention was interrupted by, oh, say a shriek from a tantruming
toddler or crying baby (not that these things ever happen), you can make up the
missing words by reading it quickly to yourself. As long as you don't miss more
than a whole verse, you can still catch up and follow along with the baal koreh
(the one reading the megila for the congregation).
*Tips:
For many women during mommyhood, this is a moot point because they
usually get the megila chanted for them separately – either by someone
privately or at a special women's reading. Hat tip to Sara Plotkin who
suggested that, one solution is simply hosting the women's reading. This, however, may or may not work for some people. Either way, Purim requires couple tag-teaming
so that you help each other fulfill your mitzvah!
*Story time:
They say necessity is the mother of invention. In my case,
motherhood caused the necessity for me to look at the megila differently.
When my kids were little, I used to take the kids and babies to
megila, not because I expected to actually be yotzeh, but for the kids
to understand that this is how the Jewish calendar works; you go to megila. I'd
pack their noisemakers and we'd see how long they could last/pay attention.
They liked seeing everyone in their costumes and often they would make it at
least for one "haman!" As soon as they would run out of patience, I
would take them home. Avi would run home afterwards so I could run out to the
women's reading. In the morning I wouldn't even try to take them to megila
reading. Avi would go to minyan and then as soon as he would come home I would
run out to the women's reading. This worked fine for several years until one year
- it didn't.
One year everyone and everything was "off," and I didn't
even try to take the kids to megila reading at shul at night. I said "no
problem – they're exempt and I'm just gonna go to the women's reading
later." Then one of the kids had an accident and I lost track of time
cleaning it up and before i knew it, I had missed my chance to come on time to
the women's reading. There was maybe one or two other times that happened
in the past, and Avi read the megila for me (either borrowed one from a neighbor
or later we bought one). But this night, Avi had to run out to a Chasidic tisch
in Ashdod and couldn't stay and read it for me. What do I do?!
Avi remembered that I had shown him Chabad.org's megillah trainer
that I said I was gonna learn from one day. He said "ok, open it up, take
the megilah and just repeat what you hear from the trainer." He went off,
the kids fell asleep, I opened our klaf megilah and started parroting what the
rabbi on the website chanted, 2-3 words at a time! It took an hour and a half.
After that, I decided to start learning it for real. Hey if I can remember
Korean song lyrics off by heart just from hearing it over and over again, then
why not something useful LOL?
Next Installment #5: Halacha and Tips - Seuda and Drunkness
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