This week we have more commandments given to Moses on Sinai. While other things, such as the oil for the menorah and the procedures for sacrifices are mentioned, the main part of the text describes the garb of the Kohen Gadol, the high priest. Last year, I wrote this about “game face” and in the year in-between I had a lot of time to think about that piece and the idea of game face. We read near the beginning of the portion
1. And take to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, that he may minister to me in the priest’s office, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons. 2. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother for glory and for beauty. (Ex. 28:1-2)
For those who do not remember my thoughts from last year, I wrote about the need for all that stuff the High Priest needs to put on. Items like the breastplate and the stone have symbols encompassing all the tribes, for example. This is less about utilitarian clothing and more about the symbol one sends to other humans. God, of course, being omnipresent and omniscient, sees us in our underwear and naked all the time. It is not therefore necessarily for God, but for humans. When we put on our professional clothes and go out to do our trade, we put on a face that is not completely our genuine selves, much like the face a professional poker player or basketball player- our game face, a mask over our true selves.
I’ve though about that mask in several ways over the past few weeks. Last weekend, I went on retreat with my synagogue to Oconomowoc WI. This Shabbat in a very uncharacteristic move for me, I left much of what I usually carry in pockets and belt loops in my room, and spent the whole day without any of this stuff. And strangely I felt much lighter, both physically and spiritually. Physically was rather surprising, though it shouldn’t have. When you add up a PDA, handheld internet device, cell phone, iPod, wallet, portable keyboard, digital thermometer and flashlight there is a real difference in weight. Internally, it was also interesting - without any of these things on my person, I didn’t think about them, they were not screaming at me to check voice e-mail or voice mail, or catch up on the podcasted news clips. In fact, I did not miss them at all, so much so that it was not after I had packed the next day to leave that I realized none of them were still on my person, and most of them had been packed away in my suitcase by mistake. I really felt the weight when I clipped all that stuff to my belt or placed it in the appropriate pockets.
Secondly was the theme of the retreat: the upcoming holiday of Purim, where here again the clothes (or lack of them) make the person. We start with Vashti, and here the issue is whether she will show herself in royal crown and nothing else (Esther 1:11). Then we move the Esther dressing minimally, in only the few things the king likes instead of heavy ostentation (2:15). Later when she appears before the king unbidden, Esther dresses in royalty(5:1), which could be interpreted as either royal apparel(Targum Sheni 5:1), or only in the glory of the Holy Spirit and a smile (Esther Rabbah IX:1). Mordechai twice appears in the apparel of the kind first as a reward for his informing on a conspiracy to kill the king(6:8,11), wearing royal robes and the crown. The second time is after he is given the late-Haman’s job (8:15) wearing royal
robes of blue and linen, and a big gold turban and a wrap of fine linen and purple.
Purim itself of course is about dressing up in a mask that is not your own. As I’m busy looking for a hula skirt and my lost shaker of salt, I thought about that, about getting to try on a face that is not how you define yourself on any other day. Yet after trying on this face, you might even want to change into that person. The shy kid I am around people gets to be a Parrothead - something I would never think to do at a real Jimmy Buffet show. Yet in the craziness of Purim turning things on their heads, you can throw your game face in the dust and pick up something else, at least to try, and somehow like throwing my PDA and laptop in my suitcase, it is somehow refreshing not to have your regular mask on.
I did not watch the academy awards, yet it was with interest I noted that more press time was spent on what stars were wearing than what they accomplished professionally. Those who wear masks for a living are only judged by the mask they wear that day, not by performance they gave on the screen. Yet that mask they had that evening, sets the masks we all wear. As an artist, I also perused those fashions with interest, as I do with all fashions. As I can’t afford live models and beautiful clothes to paint live models, I very often turn to fashion magazines and catalogs for photo references while I’m painting. Yet the stuff I see there often disturbs me as these magazines primary job is to sell a certain mask that we, as both men and women are to either accept or to buy. Even the one fashion issue of Sports illustrated, the swimsuit issue, in remembrance of Esther and Vashti’s dilemma, tries to answer in a disturbing way the question posed by Victoria’s Secret: What is sexy? And in all of these it is a daily mask we are forced into that most cannot fit into. It does not even fit the models photographed in these magazines, which I realized once after meeting Elsa Benitez, the cover model of the 2001 SI swimsuit issue at an event I was attending. She was not even close in appearance, She was a bony anorexic compared to the image in the magazine. The camera added a few pounds and in the painting I had made from that cover photo I had to add a few more to make her truly look sexy. No, not even cover models fit their own mask.
And it is here we need to look at the mask on Aaron and the high priest. In Torah, His brother Moses and Sister Miriam the text is very clear about their emotions, as in their stories their emotions are explicit. Yet for Aaron he is oddly silent, even when watching the death of his own sons. It must be the outfit. While not carrying a PDA or laptop laden backpack, he is carrying the Urim and Thummim on his outfit. He is also carrying the breastplate, the ephod, the girdle the miter the stones of memorial, gold chains connecting much of this outfit together and solid gold bells and pomegranates along the hem of the robe. Physically this outfit weighed a ton, and particularly after the death of his sons Nadab and Abihu it may have emotionally have weighed heavily too, knowing, like a diver’s scuba gear, a packed parachute, or a biohazard suit, if his outfit fails to be perfect, he dies. Yet the threat of death is less than half the weight. The bigger weight gives Aaron and every high priest after him the same mask we now give to the supermodel and movie star. They must be perfect, with no vulnerability, to give us the ideal look for all of us, one we cannot even hope to mimic, though we try.
In that trying to be perfect and beautiful, there is stress and tension. Like Aaron, we feel that daily; yet there needs to be a place to release that tension. Hence Shabbat and Purim. While Aaron might have to be in the monkey suit on the seventh day, we on Shabbat can get rid of it, and be free of both the emotional and physical weight of the stuff we carry to do our daily lives. Purim goes one further, our regular clothes, indeed even our gender, may be thrown away for one evening of Purim spiel. A person who tries to look professional virtually every day of the year can look like a total idiot for a wonderful evening when things are turned on their head.
So this weekend, and next week may you enjoy the opportunity to relax your mask.
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