Parshah — True Confessions of a Peritzman Kid

“And it was found written that Mordechai had reported about Bigsan and Teresh, two officers of the king… who wanted to send out their hand against King Achashveirosh.”

(Megillas Esther 6:2)

Ben Peritzman amar: We learn a life lesson from the way the Bnei Haman wrote or read the stories in Achashveirosh’s Sefer Hazichronos. When they recorded what happened with Bigsan and Teresh, they penned their version of the story because that’s the way they were hoping the story would be remembered. They understood that there’s power in the written word. And there’s power in the way people read it. (On a side note, there’s also power in the way people respond to it. That’s why the first thing my mother and sisters read every week in Mishpacha are the opinionated letters. But I’m getting off track.) Then Hashem, in His hidden way, forces the Bnei Haman to reveal the real version of the story, and from here, we see the incredible power of setting the record straight… as I now plan to do.

It’s about time my mother gave me a voice to tell all her readers what really goes on around here. She thinks that because I don’t read English so well, I don’t know what she says about me, but hey, I know the funny stuff I do, so I know I’ll eventually end up being plastered across the pages of her magazine.

She also thinks that because she changed my name to Yitzi, no one is going to recognize me. But truth is, my mother barely remembers the real name she gave me at my bris and calls me mostly by my brothers’ names, so making up a name like Yitzi isn’t giving me that much privacy.

Since you probably think you know everything about me, I’d like to begin by correcting some facts and some twisting of the truth.

To start, not everything my mother writes about Yitzi means that I actually did it. No, this is not your typical “It wasn’t me!” protest. Somehow, I get to represent the antics of all the male progeny of the Peritzman household; if any of us brothers do anything crazy, goofy, or wacky, guess who it’s pinned on? (My sister gave me the word progeny. I didn’t ask my mother, because then she’d call us her precious progeny, and please, that’s mortifying.)