The Gorilla's Lesson About Purim

The Gorilla's Lesson

Rabbi Avi Shafran



The little boy was petrified, as one might imagine, by the gorilla who sat down next to him at the table in his (the child’s) home. I hadn’t meant to scare the kid; I was just tired and needed to get off my paws.

It was a very long-ago Purim (the child is now a father and accomplished talmid chochom) and a group of us had rented costumes to use in Purim visits to homes while collecting for a worthy charity. The gorilla suit was very realistic (and very hot).

Sheftel, as I’ll call the boy (because it’s his name) was around three years old at the time. I was around 19. I felt bad, and immediately removed my head—that is to say the gorilla’s.

Sheftel’s eyes shrunk back to their normal size and the scream that had lodged in his lungs never made it to his wide open mouth. He saw it was only me.

When, a bit later, I replaced my gorilla head, Sheftel let out a scream. I reminded him from inside that it was only me. He screamed again. I took off the head and he immediately calmed down. I put it back on and, once again, he screamed.

Children, apparently, have to reach a certain stage before they realize that a costume is only a costume, that the person wearing it remains the person wearing it even when he’s wearing it. Sheftel had yet to internalize that truth.

Related and more poignant is the lesson of an old Yiddish joke, about Yankel informing Yossel that, unfortunately, Shmelkeh had just passed away. “Shmelkeh?” asks Yossel, “the guy with the oversized ears?”

“Yes, that Shmelkeh,” Yankel says sadly.

“The fellow with the terrible skin condition, the rash covering most of his face?”

“Yes,” once again.

“The Shmelkeh missing an eye, and with the large wart on his chin?”

“Yes, yes, that Shmelkeh,” Yankel confirms.

“Oy!” exclaims Yossel. “Azah shaineh Yid!” (“Such a beautiful Jew!”)

Superficial things, we come to realize if we’re perceptive, are, well, superficial. Masks, in other words, mask.

The theme of misleading appearances is, of course, central to Purim. Esther, the heroine of the historical happening commemorated on the day, hides her identity from the king who takes her as his queen. Her very name is rooted in the Hebrew word for “hidden,” and is hinted to, the Talmud teaches us, in words the Torah uses to refer to Hashem “hiding” Himself, rendering his providence undetectable.

Which it is in the Purim story. The absence of Hashem’s name from Megillas Esther reflects the fact that His presence was not overtly evident in what happened. Yet, His “absence” was itself but a mask; Divine providence, in the form of delicious ironies, informs the story at every turn. From Achashverosh’s execution of his first queen to suit his advisor and then execution of his advisor to suit his new queen; to Mordechai’s happenstance overhearing and exposure of a plot that comes to play a pivotal role in Klal Yisroel’s salvation; to Haman’s visiting the king at the perfectly wrong time… Hashem’s presence loudly hums, so to speak, in the background. If anything merits being called The Purim Principle it would be: Nothing is an Accident.

Even the very symbol of meaningless chance, the casting of lots, turns out to be Divinely directed and crucial to the Purim miracle.

Klal Yisrael, too, is “masked.” The people seem beholden to an idolatrous, lecherous king, and readily participate in his grand ball where he celebrates, of all things, the finality of the Beis Hamikdosh’s destruction, chalila.

But that was, as the Talmud teaches us, a merely superficial stance. In truth, behind the unimpressive Jewish veneer lay Jewish hearts dedicated to Hashem. And when events began to blow like a strong wind, the masks were ripped away. Our ancestors, in their fasting and prayers, showed their true essence.

Is it any wonder that on Purim we wear masks? And make fun—of ourselves and even (good naturedly) of others? What we mock are the masks we all wear, the particular character each of us projects. The mockery declares that such things are superficialities, camouflaging what really matters: the Jewish soul that resides in, and ultimately defines, us.

© 2012 AMI MAGAZINE

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