Behind This Mask
Plus: the new season of Chutzpod is HERE! And Team Chutzpod shares our favorite drinks for Purim.
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February 27, 2026 // 10 Adar, 5785
The Festival of Purim is nearly upon us! This week, Rabbi Shira writes about taking off your mask and revealing a different version of yourself.
Ever wonder what God does all day? The Talmud tells us. (Avodah Zarah 3b). The rabbis imagine God’s day as having a schedule.
God learns Torah.
God judges the world.
God sustains the world with compassion.
God plays with the Leviathan.
Which is a wild thing to say about God. But it’s also oddly relieving. Because if that’s true for God — that after a long day of responsibility, the final spiritual practice is play… then maybe it’s true for us too.
Educators know that play isn’t the opposite of learning. It’s how we make meaning. It’s how children digest the world. And in a way, that’s exactly what Jewish communities were doing when they developed the custom of dressing up on Purim.
What is this kind of play supposed to teach us?
The answer is hidden inside the Megillah itself.
From the very beginning of the story, everything is veiled.
Vashti refuses to reveal herself “to the peoples and the officials.” Esther (whose very name, the rabbis notice, echoes the Hebrew root s-t-r — hidden,) hides her name and her Jewishness. Mordecai saves the king’s life, and it gets swallowed by the bureaucracy. Everything’s happening beneath the surface.
And then slowly, the hidden things start to surface.
The king can’t sleep and the royal record is read aloud: Wait — Mordecai saved my life? And we never honored him?
Esther reveals her identity.
The Jews move from fasting to feasting.
The story turns on moments of unveiling.
Purim’s deepest move? The word megillah contains the root g-l-h — to reveal. So Megillat Esther can almost be heard as: revealing the hidden.
Purim understands something psychologically brilliant: like with play therapy, sometimes you can’t tell the truth directly. Sometimes you need a costume to say what you can’t say barefaced.
Sometimes the mask doesn’t conceal. Sometimes the mask gives you permission.
Most of us spend a lot of our days being the thing that people think we already are. I am the east coast, snowflake liberal, long-time married, oldest child, mom-of-three rabbi.
Who are you? “the responsible one?” Or “the funny one?” Or “the caretaker?” Or “the one who’s fine?” All day long, we perform ourselves. We survive our days by becoming a consistent self.
Purim comes along to say v’na’hafoch hu! Turn it all on its head! Let’s play with everything! Purim comes along and says: you are not only one thing.
On Purim, we reach for different masks so as to find all the parts of ourselves — the small ones, even the tender ones, even the transgressive ones. Purim loosens the hierarchy. Kids mock parents. Students mock teachers. Status distinctions wobble. Assumptions get playful. And in that loosening, something sacred can happen:
The “me” I’m absolutely convinced I am, that you’re absolutely convinced that I am… may not be so set in stone after all.
So I want you to try something for a moment. Quietly, to yourself: what are the parts of you that have been pushed out by all the assumptions and pressures of life? Purim asks: how might you reclaim those parts?
This Purim, try on a new mask — not just to hide, but to reveal. Hide the panim, the face that everyone thinks they see, to see the p’nim, the inside. Let the day disrupt your usual story about who you’re allowed to be.
And when you dress up and play a little, know that you’re in good company. Because even God — after a long day of learning and judging and compassion — makes time, in the fourth quarter, to play.
Chag Purim Sameach.
Listen
Happy Chutzpod Season 7 release! Our first episode follows our Purim theme: we’re talking to Rabbi Zac Kamenetz of Shefa about using psychedelics to enhance your Purim experience.
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Before we go
As is custom on Purim, The Chutzpod team indulges in a celebration of safe substance use. Hanna recommends a good ol’ Tom Collins; producer Robin enjoys a THC Margarita; producer Lanni indulges in a spiked fruity punch; and Rabbi Shira shoots Fireball Whisky.
What’s your substance of choice to celebrate Purim?
Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments, listen, send us your questions, and donate.
Shabbat Shalom Chutzsquad!