The scroll of Esther is one of the most surprising books in the Bible. It contains no overt miracles in the classical sense. It contains no prophecy, and even the name of God is absent from it.
And yet, it is precisely from the concealment that a revelation of a different kind is born. Between the Purim costumes and the story of Esther, a profound insight is revealed about masks, identity, and the ability to choose when to hide and when to be revealed.
The holiday of Purim is associated with costumes and masks. Behind this entertaining and enjoyable custom lies a profound idea that speaks to the tension between concealment and revelation.
A mask is sometimes perceived as concealing the truth, but from a broader perspective, a mask is also a persona (personality) – that is, the way in which a person appears in the world. It is not a lie, but a way of being and living in a complex reality. A person is not one uniform identity, but rather multiple faces that live together simultaneously. One moment...
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