Parshat Tetzaveh and Purim: On Dressing Up

My children love dress-up. They put on a cape and are transformed. They become brave warriors or super-heroes with special powers. The clothes help them move out of their ordinary, simple selves, into a world of infinite capacity.

Why do we dress up on Purim? I think it is a lesson in self-transcendence, in the ability to shed the entrapments of personal concerns and ego issues and imagine ourselves differently.

Self-transcendence is what the High Priest spoken of in this week’s parsha has to do. After all, a high priest is really just an ordinary human being, one who happens to have a special job to perform. How does he manage to transform himself from an ordinary private person with his own personal concerns to a representative of the people to God? He gets dressed. This week’s parsha lists all the special clothing worn by priests in general, and by the High Priest in particular. When he puts on the breastplate of 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel, the High Priest, like my children in their capes, is transformed. He has taken up the mantle of a messenger, ready to play his divinely assigned public role.

It isn’t always easy to transcend one’s personal issues, to rid oneself of any gnawing self-doubt about one’s ability to successfully perform the task, and to take on the designated role. Esther had trouble with it, was unsure she would succeed in her mission to approach the king. What did she do? “Esther dressed herself in royal apparel” (5:1). She “dressed up” as a queen, put on the clothes for the part, and somehow through this act of bravery and imagination, she found the strength and confidence of a queen.

How does dressing in a costume accomplish anything? Why not first feel that you are a certain kind of person and then put on the clothes that represent who you are? Because sometimes you are, like Esther, not sure who you are, not sure you can be a “queen” and play the role you have been handed. Dressing the part is an opportunity to imagine yourself differently, to imagine that you are capable of spectacular, brave, and mostly very competent deeds. Dressing up is a leap of imagination and courage; once you see yourself dressed the part, it is easier to imagine that you will be able to do it. It is a way of rethinking your definition of self from the outside in.

No one is born a President, born a parent or a teacher or a high priest. That first time, that first day necessarily involves a leap of imagination, a kind of play-acting of the part. Once you have “dressed up” that first time, it is easier to imagine yourself into such a role, to transcend your personal inhibitions and take up the mantle.

Maybe dressing up is not just for kids after all.