Every year with the arrival of the holiday of Purim I can't help but remember my great joy in celebrating it as a child. I remember a couple of years when I even won the costume award at our Temple in Baltimore. They really knew how to make Hamantaschen in the city of Baltimore in those days. And everybody in the religious school received their very own Hamantaschen to take home.

Of course, I also remember with great affection and emotion the many years that Andrea and I would prepare costumes for Jennifer and Deborah. As Purim arrived, my main responsibility was to select the materials -- the foil covered cardboard, the glitter, the jewels and the rhinestones -- that would go into each years Purim crowns.

Andrea kept a box of costume jewelry which we knew would delight the girls each year and from which they were allowed to select all that they wanted to decorate their queenly gowns.

At whatever temple we were with, our girls would gleefully participate in the family services and in the religious school celebrations and carnivals -- not that they had a choice! As 'rabbi's kids' they were going to dress up and participate no matter what. It was especially easy for us, however, because both of our daughters were really into it.

The truth is, I looked forward each year to the Megillah reading. As a child I remember booing at the mention of Haman. Joining with everyone else to blot out his evil name. Of course, we cheered for Mordecai, proud to be a descendant of such good and faithful Jew.

I applauded the deeds of the virtuous Ester, and scowled at the behavior of that stupid King, Ahasuerus. How could that king be so stupid, after all, as to entrust the very lives of those Jewish people into the hands of that evil Haman?

As we grow older we come to see that often what seems so simple and pure is, in reality, far more complex and nuanced. Isn't it, when you think about it, rather strange to hold up Ester as the Jewish role model of perfection? She and Mordecai were closet Jews when you think about it. Mordecai warned her two times not to reveal her true identity. Yet, like Ester, Mordecai is lauded as 'highly regarded by all Jews.'

But, can these two really be praised without some degree of reservation? Ester seemed quite happy to marry her Gentile king. Sometimes I wonder, isn't it Vashti who ought to be extolled as being virtuous. Vashti had real character. She was the one who refused to take off her royal robes in public exposing herself in the 'all together'! Vashti defied the order of the king and for this she was either killed or banished. Why do we not honor her integrity and sense of morality?

We know, of course, that the turn of the plot occurs when Mordecai is forced to choose between his inner and outer identities: is he a Jew or a Persian nobleman? Is he Joseph, Disraeli, Kissinger, or Lieberman? When he ultimately chose to symbolically reveal himself as a Jew by not bowing down to Haman, Ester was also forced to deny her Jewishness or to publically affirm it. But Haman was finally revealed as an anti-Semite, and his doom was sealed once and for all.

The 'G-Rated' version of the Purim story with which we grow up as children is one which ends happily for everybody. Ester exposes Haman's evil plan to the king, and is punished. Haman is forced to lead Mordecai on the very horse he had arranged to use to honor himself.

The older we grow, however, the more sophisticated our understanding of this story. The 'P.G.' Rated version informs us that Haman was hanged on the very gallows he had intended for the Jews. Although a bit more dramatic than the first version, nonetheless it is a palatable end to the villain in the tale of heroic acts and deeds.

Finally, however, when we become really adult, we must be ready for the 'M.A.' Rated version of the Purim story. It is the one reserved for Mature Audiences, those capable of understanding that even heroes are not saints and that life has a way of being sloppy and less than 'happily ever after.' In this 'M.A.' version, there is more violence, more retaliation to say the very least, more plotting. Come to think of it, it has all the making of a Hollywood movie, featured after hours on Cinemax.

In this real version, it is not enough that Ester receives the King's promise that the Jews will live. For even though the King did issue a counter verdict almost immediately, he was not thought to be enough to prevent the violence that many of their countrymen had been planning against the Jews. What happens next is unbelievably gory and violent. It is, without a doubt, the part that we choose to not tell our children. It is the chapter of the Megillah that we adults often prefer not to read. But, it is a part of the story.

We need to turn to Chapter 9 of the Megillah wherein where, in this penultimate chapter of the saga of Purim we learn the 'rest of the story.'

Since the Jews of Shushan feared that those who plotted against them would attack regardless of the decree of the King, these countrymen of Ester and Mordecai did what one might expect them to do, they attacked first. Says the Megillah:

So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies.

Recorded in Chapter 9 of the Book of Ester are all of the details of the massacre that ensued. We certainly are not proud of what the Jews of Shushan and their brethren in the neighboring provinces did on that day. As a matter of fact, according to the Megillah, in the fortress of Shushan the Jews killed on the first day of battle a total of 500 men and also, the ten sons of Haman, their mortal enemy. Though Megillah makes it clear, over and over again, that the Jews did not lay hands on the spoil of the Persians, when King Ahasuerus asked his beloved Ester what more she would like him to like him to allow the Jews to do, her answer was astounding:

If it please Your Majesty, let the Jews in Shushan be permitted to act tomorrow also as they did today; and let Haman's ten sons be impaled on the stake. The King ordered that this should be done, and the decree was proclaimed in Shushan.

According to the Biblical record, do you know that 75 thousand Persians were killed during two days of battle. And those days were followed by days of celebration, feasting, and merry-making and, as an occasion for sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor.

So what sense do we make of this holiday of Purim? I think it's safe to say that we're probably better off skipping chapter 9 of the Megillah! This is a holiday better celebrated with a child's-eye view of the events recorded. It's a time to scream and shout and give recognition to the "good guys" who too often failed to receive their just due in the order of the real world. How many times have we Jews been the victims, and on how few, the victors?

I remember reading somewhere a story of a fellow coming up to a newsboy actively selling papers at a busy city corner. The young boy was calling out, "Read all about it -- just five cents a paper." The fellow came up to the boy and asked, "How in the world do you make any money selling the morning newspaper for just five cents? You have to pay at least that much for each paper yourself."

The young boy looked up at the man quizzically and admitted, 'Well, that's right, 5 cents a paper is what I pay."

The fellow said, "So, why do you sell them for same amount? What's your profit?" And the boy replied: "Profit? I don't need to make anything, I just enjoy getting out here and screaming 'Read all about it'!"

Doesn't everyone need a time to simply blow off steam? That's what Purim comes down to -- A Jewish silly season perhaps. Or as one child wrote:
 

I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy as can be,
For Purim is coming as everyone can see.
My costume is finished, my mask is done;
I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready for the fun.