Purim is the holiday of masks and costumes. The Megillah is a story of hidden identities. Only at the end is everyone understood completely for who they are, for better or for worse.
At the core is Esther. The Megillah introduces her as "Hadassah, she is Esther." The Megillah does not tell us when or why she received either of her names. In the Talmud there is the following discussion:
- Rabbi Yehudah says: Hadassah was her name, and she was called Esther because she hid her important matters (masteret in Hebrew means "hide").
- Rabbi Nechemiah says: Hadassah was her name, and she was called Esther because the gentiles called her after Ishtar, the goddess of beauty.
- Ben Azzai says: Esther was not tall and she was not short, but of medium stature, just like a myrtle (hadas in Hebrew means "myrtle").
- …Rabbi Eliezer said: Every individual nation imagined that she came from there.
At the start of the Megillah, the rabbis say, Esther was a person who projected no individuality. She had an identity, but she hid it (at Mordechai's insistence). Ben Azzai and Rabbi Eliezer suggest that when others saw Esther, they saw whatever confirmed their own reality. She disturbed or challenged no one. Ironically, says Rabbi Nechemiah, Esther was regarded like a goddess -- but not one who teaches or commands anything.
Esther is remarkable because of the way she learns to reveal herself. At first, when Mordechai asks her to intercede against Haman, Esther says she only knows how to be what others see. Things change when she realizes that she can fulfill her purpose even while she is everything the world says she is. She has to find a way to integrate what is hidden and what is seen. Both are real. Both are who Esther is.
Esther fasts for three days. Perhaps to find herself, perhaps to speak from deep inside the strange Persian harem to the unique God of her people. When she emerges and approaches the king, he sees her as more beautiful than ever. Eventually, Esther brings all "her important matters" out into the open. She challenges Haman, and the king. She not only saves her people, but brings all of them out into the open. She does all this not merely by being Esther, but as "Esther the Queen." Esther and Queen.
Our roles and labels may not be the most real things about us. They may even trap us. But as with Esther, they give an easy opening for others to see us. Our challenge, sometimes, is not to throw off our labels, but to become them and more.
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