From Dr. Amy…

In a parallel universe, who could you be? Who could you have been? What would that feel like? Just try it on for a day, Purim says. Crazier things have happened.

We are in the final countdown to Purim, and if you are anything like me, this means it’s time to get serious about a costume. 

For most of my life, I’ve experienced the costume part of Purim as the kind of thing we do “for the kids,” or “to be a good sport.” I’ve chosen random costumes based on comfort and availability. But in recent years, I’ve been trying to think of it more as an invitation to inhabit some alter-ego, some other Amy in the multi-verse. What if I’d been born on a cattle ranch in Montana instead of on Long Island? What if I’d leaned harder into career rather than family? What would be the same, essential Amy, and what would be different? It’s the stuff of movies (Sliding Doors, circa 1998) and books (The Midnight Library, 2020) - we all wonder. And on Purim, we can play.

Rabbi Mishael Tzion teaches  “Purim invites us to set aside a time in which we completely reverse our wardrobe, which in turn reverses our identity” – this is just one of the many inversions of Purim. Esther goes from orphaned Jewish nobody to the Queen, married to a Persian king. The Jews who had been peacefully going about their business, loyal to the kingdom, become imperiled for no apparent reason. Most famously, that plot is overturned, and the would-be murderers become the victims. And each time the plot turns, the characters learn new things about the world and about themselves. When we don costumes, we turn ourselves upside down. What can we learn from it? 

In Pirkei Avot, a rabbi named Ben Bag Bag says of the Torah: “Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it.” He doesn’t tell students to “try a different angle” – he is not asking us to change our perspective. He says הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ. Turn the Torah itself. It makes me picture a vessel full of gems and rocks and diamond dust - the small pieces settle and get stuck behind the bigger ones, seemingly never to be seen again. But if you turn it, you release every shiny secret that’s been tucked away from view. What if we are like the Torah, with little parts of ourselves that got stuck behind this life choice or that one?

Rabbi Tzion goes on to say “At its scariest hours, Purim, like the good carnival that it is, makes us wonder if there is an "authentic self" at all, or whether it is all just endless masks upon masks.”   I don’t actually find it scary, though. I’m not worried about my essential self, or yours - but I am awfully curious. Could the “turning upside down” of Purim masks and costumes reveal some spark about us that is actually true? We won’t know unless we try.