Purim came twice this year - and Nivcheret made room for both.

Purim and Shushan Purim are normally one day apart for most of the world, but this year, with the calendar the way it fell, the home's two Jerusalem campuses observed them on separate days - Tuesday at Nivcheret, Wednesday at the flagship campus. Which meant we did Purim twice.

The kitchen produced 1,400 mishloach manos. Three hundred went to the Nivcheret girls. Four hundred to the flagship campus. Six hundred to former graduates of the home now living in their own homes, with their own families - many of them sending their own daughters back the next week to volunteer for the next holiday.

On Tuesday morning at Nivcheret, the corridor between the main hall and the Beis Medrash was lined with eight-year-olds in costume. There were three Queen Esthers, two doctors, a firefighter, an astronaut, and one girl dressed as the home's longtime cook, Miryam, who has been there since 1992. Miryam was the costume. The girl had asked for the costume two months in advance.

Three girls at Nivcheret had never worn a Purim costume before. The house mothers know which three. The girls do not know that the house mothers know. The costumes were not framed as a gift. They were framed as the regular costume distribution that every girl gets. None of the three girls cried in front of anyone. Two of them cried in their rooms that night. The house mothers heard about it the next morning, the way the house mothers always hear about it.

“The point of Purim is that for one day, every year, we do not have to be who anyone expects us to be.”

At the Wednesday celebration at the flagship campus, Rabbi Chaim Elazar gave the dvar Torah. He stood on the small platform at the back of the dining hall and said: "The point of Purim is not the costume. The point of Purim is that for one day, every year, we do not have to be who anyone expects us to be. Every girl in this room should know that this home is the version of that day that lasts the whole year."

The room cheered. Then they ate. The seudah ran for four hours.