Esther is made to hide her identity as a Jew. How do we conceal our identity today - emotionally, spiritually, physically? Is it helpful or a hinderance?
What mask does Esther put on here? How does it help or hinder her?
(18) Yet I [God] will keep My countenance hidden on that day, because of all the evil they have done in turning to other gods.
Deuteronomy 31:18 tells us that God is hidden. Does God wear a mask with us? Why might God wear a mask? Is that helpful or a hinderance to our relationship to God and to ourselves?
(36) You shall make a frontlet of pure gold and engrave on it the seal inscription: “Holy to Adonai.” (37) Suspend it on a cord of blue, so that it may remain on the headdress; it shall remain on the front of the headdress [of the High Priest].
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How might we treat people differently if we all walked around with that particular sign on our forehead? (teaching from R' Dusty Klass, from R' Richard Levy z"l)
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Is that a different kind of mask? Why or why not?
מָסָךְ - screen; (theater) curtain
So we could re-read this verse in several ways:
"Do not make masks your God" ~ meaning, do not make what is most external, the masks that we use to deal with others, a God. Do not forget that masks are just that, masks. What is superficial is not supposed to take over your life.
"Do not use your God as a mask" ~ meaning, do not use religion as a curtain to disguise who you are.
(from Nelly Altenberger)
On Purim, Jews dress up and wear masks that change faces etched in pain and suffering into joy and frivolity. On the surface, it seems that Purim involves an escape from reality, one moment in which we can mask the pain and difficulties we experience and don fanciful carnival masks and costumes. All is turned on its head on Purim; even gender roles are ignored, and men and women can dress up as the other. Yet in a deeper way, this Jewish carnival experience allows us to challenge the inevitability of things as they are inherited identities and fates. And in so doing, Purim provides us with the hope that the garments we put on that seem only to mask our present realities can reveal the deep-seated consciousness of our potential for change, our ability to bring happiness and fulfillment to our lives. Purim's masks may seem to conceal, if just for a moment, the chaos and pain of our present lives and enable us to escape this reality, but they may really offer us the chance to don serious masks of conscious determination to bring the light of the Divine into our world.