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By: Brandon Chiat, Digital Media Manager

Purim is a holiday wrapped in a disguise and concealed behind a mask.

“Everything gets flipped upside down in the Purim story,” said Rabbi Steve Schwartz. “King Achashverosh, who should be wise, is a fool; Esther is a Jew, but no one knows, as she is disguised; Haman is Achashverosh's most important minister until suddenly Mordechai is!”

Such is the theme of Purim: nothing is revealed.

Most notably, Esther, the heroine of the Purim story, conceals her identity. "Ein Esther magedet moledetah," says the Megillah. "Esther did not reveal her origins."

Similar motifs can be found in popular culture.

Take the popular new game show, “The Masked Singers,” a top-secret singing competition in which celebrities face off against one another while shrouded from head to toe in an elaborate costume, concealing their identity.

Appropriately, Beth El chose “The Masked Singers” as the theme for this year's Purim Spiel: The Masked Singers of Shushan, hosted by Beth El member and local celebrity Deborah Weiner (co-anchor of WBAL-TV 11 News).

By guessing the identities of three mysterious guests, the Beth El congregation will participate in an ancient tradition, one that is characteristic of Esther and Mordechai's lineage.

Esther and Mordechai, the protagonists of the Purim story, are descendants of Rachel, herself the very essence of hiddenness. When Rachel's sister Leah is substituted for her in marriage to Yaakov, Rachel conceals her bitter disappointment, rather than humiliate her sister by protesting the injustice.

“The costumes we wear on Purim reflect the hiddenness of the holiday,” said Rabbi Schwartz. “We dress up so that our outward appearance no longer reflects our true selves.”

On Purim, nothing is at it seems. Even Hashem is hidden in the Purim story; God's name is not mentioned a single time in the Megillah.

Unlike the overt miracles of other holidays like Passover and Hanukkah, the Purim miracle itself - whereby the entire Jewish community is saved from destruction - is hidden. The interceding hand of God is invisible.

“The message may be that you have to take control of your own destiny,” said Rabbi Schwartz.  "Esther sits in the palace, and Mordehcai says to her: ‘You have to act!' He doesn't say ‘pray to God,' instead his message is: you have to speak up, you have to make a difference!”

In this sense, the costumes we wear on Purim remind us how God is hidden in all our lives. Along those lines, the Purim mask also shows us how faith can be obscured.

“The costumes we wear on Purim remind us of Esther's hidden Jewish identity,” said Rabbi Schwartz. “For many generations, Jews struggled with how open to be about their Judaism, about how much to hide it, about how much to assimilate and by doing so ‘dress up' in another culture.”

Yet, in concealing our identities, we may learn about our most authentic selves.

“By dressing up as something else you learn more about who you are and what you truly stand for,” said Rabbi Schwartz. “There is an old Midrashic idea that Purim and Yom Kippur are opposite sides of the same coin: on Purim, we dress up, on Yom Kippur we strip down; On Purim, we feast, on Yom Kippur we fast. But the fact that the tradition connects the two means that you can learn something about your inner self on Purim, just like you do on Yom Kippur.”

Throughout the year we wear a mask. We may hide our genuine identities behind the latest fashion or a carefully curated social media presence. But on Purim, we put on a costume for a different reason: so that our inner self is able to blossom.

On Purim night, as we come together as a congregation to guess the real identities of the three Masked Singers of Shushan, we will remind ourselves, that while Purim is the holiday in hiding, we need not hide from ourselves, from each other, or from God.