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Behind the Mask

Mendy, a Jewish Ukrainian refugee and student from the Alumim children’s home in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, dresses up for the Jewish holiday of Purim after arriving to Israel following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the Nes Harim Field and Forest Education Center in Nes Harim, Israel, March 17, 2022. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
JNS.org – Purim is a serious festival. Yet many people consider it merely a children’s masquerade party. The very notion of dressing up, wearing masks and creative costumes to disguise ourselves is the subject of much rabbinic commentary.
Why do we wear masks on Purim?
There is a wide variety of answers. Here are just a few:
- God initially concealed His face in the Purim story. We seemed to be on our own, facing total annihilation, until events turned around in our favor.
- The name of God is hidden in Megillat Esther, the “Scroll of Esther.” Imagine a whole book of Holy Scripture and God’s name does not appear once.
- Esther kept her Jewish identity hidden until she was called upon to save her people.
- The name Esther itself means hidden. In Deuteronomy 31:18, God says, “And I will surely hide (in Hebrew, astir) My face on that day … ”
- The miracle of Purim was not that obvious. The Jewish people’s deliverance from Haman’s final solution was masked in natural events.
And on this last note, it’s not only when God is splitting the sea or feeding us bread from heaven that we can discern the source of our miraculous survival and sustenance. God’s footprints can be seen all over His world. The Purim story is a classical saga of politics and palace intrigue, but behind the tale lies the hidden hand of God.
It just so happened that Queen Vashti was deposed, and the talent scouts found Esther. She was a nice Jewish girl who wasn’t looking to be the new queen, but she was drafted into the beauty contest and found favor in King Ahasuerus’s eyes.
It just so happened that Mordechai overheard two of the king’s palace guards plotting to assassinate Ahasuerus and told Esther, who, in turn, told the king in Mordechai’s name.
It just so happened that the king was suffering from insomnia and asked for his book of chronicles to be read to him so he could fall asleep. And the page that the reader opened to just so happened to be about how Mordechai saved the king’s life.
It just so happened that Haman arrived at the king’s palace—at that very moment—to ask for the king’s blessing to hang Mordechai, and the tables were quickly turned upside down.
And it just so happened that we had an insider in the palace, and Queen Esther was able to save the Jewish people single-handedly.
Each of these events, and there were others, could be put down to coincidence or good luck. We have all had the good fortune of having a good woman in the right place at the right time.
But when you consider all of these “it just so happened” events together, it can no longer be a random string of coincidences or simply serendipity. There has got to be a controlling hand moving the pieces on the board in a premeditated manner. We Jews call it Divine Providence.
Indeed, Purim reminds us to recognize the presence of God in natural events, too. The Creator is not only found in the supernatural.
Of course, the sun rising in the east every morning is a miracle. But when something is a daily occurrence and happens like clockwork, we tend to take it for granted. It’s only on rare occasions, like when we are on vacation and get to see a magnificent sunrise or sunset, that we even notice this magnificent miracle.
Yes, traditionally, we recite a thanksgiving blessing in the presence of a minyan—a public prayer quorum of 10 men—when we emerge from a dangerous experience safely. We Bentch Gomel, as it is called, after a voyage over the sea or desert, recovery from serious illness or freedom from incarceration. But if you think about it, we experience so many deliverances every day. Most of them go unnoticed. There are countless little miracles (and many not-so-little miracles) that occur, but they’re all part of our regular routines, so we take them for granted.
You crossed a busy highway and got to the other side safely. How many near-misses do we have when it comes to cars? My wife and I were driving home from a wedding late one night, and a car came straight at us at top speed. He was driving on the wrong side of the highway. I managed to move lanes quickly and avoid a head-on collision, which I doubt anyone could have survived at that speed! Thank God that does not happen every day.
And what about waking up every morning? And what of the food, clothing and shelter we enjoy? Do you know there are billions of people in the world who are not privileged to have these conveniences that we take for granted? If you have a home, a car and a computer, you are way ahead of half the world’s population.
And please don’t take your good health for granted. When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why all the adults would say abi gezunt, “As long as you have your health.” What were they going on about health? Believe me, today, I understand it only too well.
We can be nonchalant about our business success, too. We may even be cynical. We can argue that our success is due to our business acumen and hard work, or we can be honest and appreciate that there are many smart, hardworking people out there who do not enjoy success. Why, then, should we?
And we can realize that God Almighty is clearly protecting Israel from all its murderous neighbors—and enemies who are not its neighbors at all—who are plotting our destruction, God forbid, or we can simply say that the Israel Defense Forces is the greatest army in the world and we protect ourselves. To be blind to all the miracles that have helped neutralize Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran is not only cynical, it is intellectually dishonest.
Whether it is in our personal lives or our national life, looking beneath the surface and reading between the lines is essential to understanding what is happening and appreciating that it isn’t just business as usual. That it isn’t even necessarily natural or logical. It is miraculous, albeit somewhat hidden from view. Our job is to probe beneath the surface to discern the hand of God in our own lives and the life of our nation.
With that awareness comes sensitivity, and then our attitude begins to change. We can verbalize and express our gratitude. We can share with the less fortunate, which is an important Purim mitzvah. We can do something for God as an expression of our thanksgiving for the little hidden miracles that keep us going through life.
May God continue to protect us all, and may we be wise enough to pierce the veil and see beyond the facade and behind the mask.
Purim Sameach!
The post Behind the Mask first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.
The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.
Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.
The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”
“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.
Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”
The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.
The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.
The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”
The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.