Adar I - How to Pick a Costume and a Good Place to Hide
“I will certainly hide my face from them on that day…” (Devarim 31:18)
“Purim consciousness, the consciousness of intoxication, enables us to accept that evil, which in times of sobriety, disturbs us so much. And even if we cannot immediately purify the good within it, we come to realize that even the husks have a role to play, even if they will be obliterated in the end.” Rav Shagar, The Mystery of Disguise
My householder spirituality affords me infinite opportunities to act incredibly bizarrely. The amount of time covered by blankets, crawling around on all fours, or putting strange objects on my head and within my beard, delights my children to no end, and connects me to their endless sense of wonder. If I’m not involved, I’m observing children deep in play, and seeking them out in the few places they can comfortably hide in our house. “I’m looking for you…I’m looking for you,” I whisper, hearing their tiny voices holding back laughter. Spirit—I didn’t even know how I lost I was until you found me!
Hide and seek, lost and found, is at the heart of this season of Jewish sacred time between the month(s) of Adar and Nisan. Most commonly, they are known by the types of miracles embedded within the holidays present in these months. The narrative intrigues and central conceits of Megillat Esther, intensified by the Divine notes not being played, heighten the redemptive moment of the story and the festival it ultimately engenders. This miraculous process is called a nes nistar—mysterious hidden forces are working and conspiring without our awareness, underground, until they ultimately become known in their sudden fullness. Perhaps if we were not seeking redemption, it would continue to be not be found. This quality is remarkably and immediately juxtaposed by the month and holiday in which miracles which are boldy apparent, where Divine action and presence is non-negotiable. Nisan and Pesach bring our awareness to the nes nigleh—the revealed miracle, the moment of being found.
When I first started picking up and trying on the apparel of religious observance and culture, it was Purim which excited me most, especially the idea that for the rest of the year, you wear a mask, but by putting on a costume, you let out who you truly are inside, at least for a day. This true-inner self gets to carouse and revel in this weird world and we get to embody its hidden-revealed power. Being in touch with inner self which is revealed through wearing a mask is a powerful teacher about what has been sublimated, what was too scared to come out more, what needed to hide in order to survive. Each Purim, we coax it out of its hiding spot with a bit of booze and some cookies to feel what it is like to be Hidden, and what is possible when it becomes Revealed.
The Hidden Face must be accepted as a necessity of living in a broken world where extraordinary pain forces us into fragmentation. Yet, our teachers guide us to embrace a wider view of where the hidden and the revealed, the spiritual and the physical, are undifferentiated. The Piacezner Rebbe, in his guide to spiritual practice teaches: It is only from *our* perspective that material is actually material, concealing the holy lights from descending and becoming truly revealed (rather than apparent only via masks and contractions, still deeply concealed—much is said about this in the holy books). For us as well, Hashem made such a place without separation between the material and the spiritual, a place in which the physical *is* spiritual. From this place, Their blessed holiness spreads unto us, to sanctify our materiality (Mevo HaShearim 1:28).
May the miraculous costumes and hiding places we frequent give us the strength and rest we need in order to see what it’s like to no longer need them.
Hodesh tov,
Z
