I used to tell a story before Purim about an American guy who came to my house in the month of Adar. A guy from an assimilated family, very intelligent, does not know a word of Hebrew, has not heard anything about Passover or Purim.
He was on a trip to the Middle East and also came to Israel, and someone sent it to me.
I began to learn with him a little about our ancestor Abraham, about the people of Israel, the virtue of Israel. Purim has arrived. I invited him to us and obtained for him the Book of Esther in English. He arrived on the eve of Purim right when I was on my way to the evening prayer, and I did not have time to tell him anything about Purim, we ran to Maariv.
Immediately after Maariv the reading of the Megillah begins and we did not manage to speak even then, the reading of the Megillah began, after the first "Haman" I am sure he is very frightened. Since then every time they said "Haman" - he grabbed my hand. He did not understand, of course, where the reader's owner was, but I saw that he was reading the scroll in English.
They finally finished reading the scroll, and then he turned to me, with a look of pity in his eyes and said say, you do not have a TV, right? I said: no. And you do not watch movies? No. Why do you ask? And he answered me: Listen, there is good material here - intrigue, conflicts between the royal couple, beauty contest, attempted assassination of the king, suspense, some war scenes, lots of blood, happy ending, really good material. It's Hollywood! Only one thing I do not understand: how a whole public, intelligent people stand in the synagogue and greet it. What happened to you?!
I said to him: Thank you very much, it is interesting to see the scroll with new eyes. But, I told him, our great sages of the ages asked a different question. They asked: Why does the name not appear in this scroll? Here he cried out: the name of the name? are you mad? Do you want to put him into this thing ?!
We came home, he calmed down a bit, ate something, and looked at things a bit.
From "This Purim Toll"
Rabbi Eli Horowitz
ביץ