The masks are a new thing. They’re not how our ancestors celebrated the holiday.
But they feel appropriate to the mood of the holiday: the truth and the salvation are revealed and concealed, concealed in their revelation and revealed in their concealment.
Who we are, who we choose to be for the other, what we reveal of ourselves in our self-concealment – the masquerade of this world order, in all its joy and danger, is signified in the masks worn as we listen to the Story of the concealment and the revelation of providence and justice in the ancient Persian empire (itself significant), with bated breath – and erupt in celebration at its ending.
What does the Story’s end conceal in its revelation? What does it reveal in its concealment?
Masks On, Friends
חג פורים שמח