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Purim is not just a festival for children. It addresses some of the deepest as well as the funniest aspects of our lives as Jews and human beings.

Deepest of all, perhaps, is the question of our hiding. Why is this a Purim question?

Because in the Scroll of Esther, both God and Esther hide. Esther — whose name is connected with "hester" and "nistar," meaning "hidden," hides her real identity in order first to advance herself and then to save her people. And God is hidden in the story — one of only two books in the Bible in which God's name is never mentioned.

And we who read the story and wear masks for Purim — do we not hide from ourselves and from each other? Can we use Purim to take off at least some of the masks we usually wear?

One of us wore a mask for 20 years, and then removed it. I — it is Phyllis speaking — went through the trauma of having all my hair fall out when I was barely 20 years old. The doctors gave it a name — alopecia — and ultimately a vague cause — they said my body had become allergic to my own hair follicles — but they had no remedy. Nothing else was wrong with me.

Nothing else? I thought my baldness meant that everything was wrong with me!

For 20 years, I wore a wig. But the wig imprisoned me more than it protected me. It made me frightened to dance — lest my wig fall off. It made me frightened to "let my hair down" in a thousand ways. It divorced me from my body. It minimized the number and reduced the quality of my friendships: Whom could I trust to tell, once I had made my baldness a deep secret?

So when I turned 40, I made an unmasking party. I asked my friends to come, I took off my wig and I began a process that has since left me simply bald in almost every aspect of my life. And my friends — they too unmasked. They told the secrets they had been ashamed to say aloud. And thus we began to heal our wounds.

Indeed, since then I have realized that many of our private shames must be made into public ceremonies of our strength. The beginning of menstruation, that whispered fact of my adolescence — now celebrated by Jewish women more and more. Menopause — that other whispered transformation — now celebrated in more and more Jewish communities by women who achieve that age of wisdom.

And Purim — the festival of Esther, the hidden one who revealed her secret to save decency, justice, her people.

Is it a paradox that on Purim we wear costumes? Of course — and it can be a joyful, truthful paradox.

This year, Purim comes on Saturday night and Sunday. We can take the time to unmask by making masks. This is how we have done it, in the communities of Jewish renewal.

On Purim evening, we make life masks. Two people work together. One lies down, really quiet; the other takes strips of gauze impregnated with plaster-of-Paris (medical-supply stores have it), covers the first person's face with Vaseline or similar jelly, then moistens the gauze in strips and covers the face. (Leave the mouth uncovered to breathe, or poke straws through.) After about 20 minutes, the gauze is stiff enough to be peeled off and a mask forms. Then the two people reverse roles.

Imagine lying so still that you feel like a body, a corpse, that is with gentle, loving care being prepared for burial by the chevra kadishah (burial society). Only you are conscious and can feel their love. (Indeed, the ancient rabbis thought that the body is conscious for a while after death; they urged us not to study Torah near a body awaiting burial, lest the dead person be saddened not to be able to study Torah with us.)

This stillness can be a moment of deep insight.

The masks continue drying. Two hours later, they are solid enough to wear. Gently punch two holes near the "ears" in the plaster face; tie an elastic tape to hold the mask around your face. Then, or perhaps next morning, you can decorate them if you choose. You can paint them or glue on beads and feathers.

With or without decorations, next morning — Purim morning — people hold the masks to their faces and go around a circle of six or seven people, saying what they see in the faces of the others.

And you can also share masks — "A" hands his mask to B, C, D, E and F to wear for a bit. As the mask goes around the circle, each one says aloud the face they see. Amazing how an opaque mask can change so much, depending on the invisible face behind. We realize that most people have between 49 and 70 faces.

So we have created and worn what looks like a mask in order to understand more deeply who we really are. Now we are ready for "unmasking" dialogues, perhaps between two persons — that is. The group divides into pairs of people who are not existing couples. Each person can say to another: "What shame have I hidden? What fear have I buried?"

We can all unmask. And if we want to face the Pharaohs of our lives when Pesach comes, then Purim is the time to show our faces.