Day 62: The Need for Moral Imagination
Moral imagination is the ability to imagine reasons why a person might act a certain way. I had a lot of trouble understanding and applying this value all day, until tonight at Megillah reading.
It was my job to organize the Megillah reading at one of the Jewish student centers on campus. For various reasons, a few of my readers dropped out and I was left to read six chapters (which I did love but it was a lot of stress to learn them in two days).
All week, I've been asking the people who volunteered to read if they need help in any way or would like recordings in order to get a better grasp of the trope. I asked one girl who I don't really know at all if she needed help or recordings and she said no.
Two of my friends read chapters 1-3 and she read chapter 4. After beautifully chanted chapters, the girl got up and read in broken Hebrew the entirety of chapter 4 without singing any of it. The audience was patient but probably confused at first.
I'm not sure if anyone was annoyed, but I sat there thanking God that she read. She probably wanted to contribute to the service and help out. Maybe she wanted to practice her Hebrew. Even if her reading went slower than others, she gave me an opportunity to exercise my moral imagination and to appreciate the dedication she put forth just to observe a mitzvah.
Chag Purim Sameach!
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