Page 40 - HaMizrachi Purim 5783 USA

JEWS

with
VIEWS Rabbi Judah Yaeli

Mischel Davis

ver the years, my family has enjoyed n Purim you can dress up as anything you
many great coordinated Purim cos- desire, but it’s precisely this freedom
tumes, from Moroccan jalabiyas and that makes the decision so difficult. It’s
unicorns to a shtetl theme. While adding hard to pick my favorite Purim costume.
Oto the raucous fun of Purim, wearing OI’ve been a princess, Rebbe Nachman
We asked five costumes reflects the day’s theme of hidden- (my dad collected Breslov kippot) and a clown.
ness and revelation. Hiding our identity lets us
But last year’s costume takes the cake. It was my
accomplished imagine depths that lie beneath our perceived first Purim since getting married, and so I forced
reality, what is beyond appearances.
my husband into doing a couples costume. But
Into a shul walk an ex-president and that was only the beginning of the struggle;
Jews from Mordechai haYehudi. Who are they really? Are when we flew to South Africa for the holiday,
we still hadn’t agreed on a costume.
they the people we know via their everyday
persona? Are we our social roles? Or are we At the last moment, we ran frantically to ‘Mr.
around the playing fictional characters? Perhaps our self- Price’ in South Africa and found our costume: Dr.
Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus from the
images within professional settings, and even
with friends, are like ‘costumes’. But who are we? children’s TV show Phineas and Ferb. I spent my
world: ‘mask’. Ancient Greek actors wore a prosopon on first Purim in South Africa walking around with
‘Persona’ derives from the Greek prosopon,
a cardboard platypus tail stapled to my bright
What is your stage – but not to conceal themselves, rather to green dress, a brown fedora and bright yellow
reveal their character and their inner emotions
shoes, while my husband Yoni made himself a
to the audience. Our Purim mask, too, reveals long paper nose and borrowed his sister’s lab
best Purim something that we hide. Megillat Esther means coat.
‘Revelation of the Hidden’.
Yoni does a good impression of his character
As we ‘dress up’ for different roles in life, our (“Perry the Platypus, how unexpected of you...” –
costume of actions and choices also fluctuate. Our behaviors if you know, you know), so people knew instantly
are levushim which can conceal our true desire to
who we were. We made an unusual sight in
live with Yiddishkeit and make holy choices. In Johannesburg – an incompetent evil scientist
all time? the beginning of the megillah, we participated and a British lady in a bright turquoise dress
with a stapled-on tail.
in the non-kosher feast of Achashverosh. But
nahafoch-hu, ‘it was reversed’, and by the end, When dressing up for Purim, we usually think
we re-accepted and upheld the Torah. On Purim about what looks best on us and what others
we realize that beneath our ‘costume’ is who we will think of us. But Purim represents the exact
really are: a Jew connected to Hashem. opposite. It’s about moving beyond our selfish
The most meaningful costume is dressing selves and bringing joy to one another – even if
up as myself, revealing me, a Jew who desires it means walking around with a platypus tail!
closeness with Hashem. This Purim, may we not Purim Sameach!
hold back – from being our truest self. LaYehudim
hayta orah… kein tihyeh lanu!
Yaeli Davis, originally from London, met Yoni, her
Rabbi Judah Mischel is Executive Director of Camp South African husband, at a kibbutz ulpan while
HASC and author of Baderech: Along the Path of working with cows. She is a Mizrachi campus orga-
Teshuvah. nizer at the Technion.

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