Every year at Purim, we tell the tale of a Jewish teenage girl who ascends to the throne of the Persian Empire by pretending not to be Jewish.
Last month, tween and teen girl participants in the JFS sponsored program, Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing, explored two pressing questions:
“How should I act if I want to be accepted by my peers?”
“When can I stop acting that way and reveal who I truly am?”
In Persia’s capitol city, Esther must hide her true identity — that she is a Jewish girl named Hadassah — behind the mask of a beauty queen. When she arrives at the palace, Esther only does what Haggai, the guardian of the concubines, tells her to do. She bathes for six months in oil and six months in spices and learns to paint herself with cosmetics. She changes to conform to the beauty standard of her day.
In these days of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, teens hide and mask their appearances in more ways than one. The pressure to appear “hot” for girls or “cool” for guys is felt countless times a day as photos are shared and commented on and ridiculed.
Eventually Esther — with the help of her uncle and mentor, Mordecai — finds the inner strength to remove her mask and reveal her Jewish identity.
On Purim, we dress up in costumes. But we are constantly costuming ourselves, sending messages about how we want to be perceived in the clothes we wear and the choices we make.
The girls made masks and considered the masks they wear and how and when they might take off those masks to let their true selves shine through.
Jewish teens need supportive communities of peers and mentors to wrestle with complex issues like these. JFS is grateful to provide these safe spaces for our teens.
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