Addressing Your Masks

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Mask 1

The Book of Genesis starts off with a bang and ends with some dust. In between it is one masquerade after another. The ball gets rolling from the beginning —energy slows down to parade as matter. Then comes the Eden story in which human self-awareness is portrayed as becoming carnal—fleshing out the naked truth. Once again, energy finds a material mask.

The final story, that weaves itself through the latter half of Genesis uses the beguiling motif of dress-up. Clothing, put on or removed, conceals identities and reveals motives; it is a window through which to address the dual nature of masks.

Jacob, father to 12 sons from his four wives, perpetuates the family dynamic of parental favoritism through gifting Joseph with a special royal coat. His brothers address the situation by stripping him of the coat and selling him into slavery. The next time they are to see him, Joseph has a new set of threads. He is the viceroy of Egypt and his brothers address him as royalty, with a deference that acknowledges his power (over them) and position of prestige.

The mask of clothing catalyzed jealousy and the brothers sought to rid themselves of those feelings by removing both the symbol and their brother, dipping the coat in blood and presenting it to their father Jacob. They may have used goat’s blood to deceive, but the blood on the coat was from their own betraying hands.  Their collusion though is on a collision course with their brother and the stain of their guilt that is not so easily wiped off.

Joseph, covering his identity with the cloak of royalty, gives then the full dress down. He recognizes them but they don’t recognize him.  He could easily put an end to their denial—strip them of their cloak of innocence. He chooses instead the route of masquerade, the “play is the thing” for self-revelation—a  different conclusion about their collusion. The longer he stays masked the wider the cracks expand and the brothers’ wall of denial comes tumbling down.

The master Kabbalist, Adin Steinsaltz clarified, that even if we were able to get fully naked, to get down to the bone there would still be, as the stories of Genesis let us know, the mask of our manifesting in form. Perhaps that is why the final verses of Genesis inform us of Joseph’s bones being interred in Egypt. The man who mastered the use of masks is still Joseph.

The eighth principle of awareness is about the masks we wear. There is nothing pejorative about the word “mask” in Kabbalah—it simply connotes the coverings we inhabit, from the clothing of our physical forms, to our character traits to the stories of our families, cultures and religions. We cannot unmask ourselves (one mask will be replaced by another). We can though strive to be aware of all our masks. The mantra to keep in mind: Are you wearing the mask or is the mask wearing you?

4 Comments

Anita Khaldy Kehmeier · November 4, 2018 at 8:54 pm

The Masks That We Wear
“Imposter Syndrome” and why we sometimes feel like a fake

Brothers and sisters, it’s that time of year: the season when Halloween pop-up stores appear on every corner. Popular costumes range from the princesses in Frozen to Donald Trump and zombies—which are, I believe, the same outfit.

People go nuts about Halloween. That made me start thinking about the psychology behind the celebration. Halloween is actually an ancient Celtic holiday on which people believed they needed masks to protect themselves from bad spirits that roamed the earth on all Hallows Eve.

Thousands of years later, people are still wearing masks. They hide behind anything from a false smile to Dr. Dre headphones to my personal favorite: people who wear dark glasses in the subway—and these people aren’t celebrities.

Then there are the emotional masks, the masks we hide behind because of fear. For example, if we are insecure, we might hide behind the mask of name-dropping. If we are unsure of our power, we can hide behind mask of being a bully. If we don’t think the world loves us, we can hide behind mask of anger. We mask the debt we’ve incurred to pay for lifestyles we can’t afford; we pretend things are fine at work, when our jobs are on the line; we pretend things are okay in our marriages when there is distance.

What masks do you wear?

One of the most common reasons we wear masks is what I think of as Imposter Syndrome—the fear that the world is going to find us out. I’ve heard it described as feeling like a fake, like you don’t really belong, or like you aren’t really successful, but are just posing as such. It’s like my Halloween costume at age seven: I dressed up as a zombie gypsy—something I believed to be terribly scary, until my next door neighbor yanked off my mask and said, “Oh, it’s just you.”

One of our greatest fears is that if we show our true selves, the world will say, “Oh, it’s just you.” But being just you is actually the best and most perfect thing you could ever be. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” Or if you are interested in the spiritual perspective, the psalmist wrote, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made”.

There are three practical reasons why we should shed our masks. The first is to live into our potential. We have to bring all of who we are to what we do. There are numerous people who have our same skillsets, or maybe an even better one. But none of these people bring the same personality, creativity, and spirit to the job that you do. That’s something they can’t match. The irony is that we often mask that part of ourselves at work and lose our greatest potential.

The second reason is relief. It is exhausting to live an inauthentic life. You put on a mask or two or ten, then take a few off, then put a couple more on … It’s exhausting! Worst of all, you start forgetting who you really are. As comedian and actress Fanny Brice explained, “Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?”

Anita Khaldy Kehmeier · November 4, 2018 at 8:57 pm

The third reason is healing. When we wear masks, we carve a piece of ourselves out— withholding parts of ourselves as unworthy. But in relationships, especially in our spiritual relationships, we can’t be truly healed unless we offer up all the pieces. It’s like handing someone a broken vase and asking him or her to fix it but holding back two or three of the broken pieces. As one of the pastors of Hope City Church in Indianapolis, Indiana explained, “Masks make shallow what God has intended to be deep…Everything in our lives get cheated when we choose to hide ourselves behind our masks.”

We weren’t born with masks. We put them on, so we can take them off. Start with this simple exercise: Think about a negative messages you have held onto. Ask yourself whether it is true? More than likely, the answer is no. And if it is not, then you have to ask these questions: Why am I carrying that message? If I put it down, what would happen? Probably nothing. The main risk we face is the world’s reaction. Opening yourself up threatens others; it invites them reevaluate their own lives. Many times, it forces them to realize that they too have the power to change, but they haven’t.

Don’t let that stop you. Don’t pull your mask partially off then let the world scare you into putting it back on. As the poet E. E. Cummings wrote, “The greatest battle we face as human beings is the battle to protect our true selves from the self the world wants us to become.”

Think about the masks you wear and commit to taking them off. Hold your gifts out to the world—no apology, no shame, no regrets. As the old saying goes, every creature has its rightful place, and in that place it becomes beautiful.

Anita Khaldy Kehmeier · November 4, 2018 at 9:01 pm

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask. – Victor Hugo

Anita Khaldy Kehmeier · December 5, 2018 at 8:46 am

I saw a documentary film- Born Again – on prime videos. It is coming of age story chronicling Markie Hancock’s struggle to leave her family and faith(evangelical christianity) to find herself. After a 20-year struggle sh emerges from the strong grip of fundamentalist religion and sees the divide not just in her family but also in the nation.

Leave a Reply

Avatar placeholder

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

connecting at woolworth storefront greensboro ga

Connecting at Woolworth’s

by Melanie Gruenwald   On Monday, I stepped into an Uber in North Carolina, with a lovely driver who was warm and welcoming. I am on my first business trip since 2015—with great anticipation and

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with his wife Yulia in Moscow, Russia, in September 2013. (AP/Evgeny Feldman)

Convicted: Aleksei Navalny

by Dr. David Sanders Both criminals and saints are convicted and both may wind up in prison. The criminal is convicted for their anti-social or illegal behavior. The saint is convicted of their strongly held

dragons eye

The Other Trap

by Dr. David Sanders A response to Rabbi Irwin Kula’s Trapped in Trauma: Transcending the Dragon’s Gaze   I have a traveling companion who I have never planned a trip with, let alone visited anywhere

Koby Gruenwald

A New Redemption Song, in memory of Koby

by Melanie Gruenwald January 19, 2018- the 3rd day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, my 13 year old son, Koby, died from a glioblastoma (brain tumor). Koby brought me to Kabbalah Experience. We began

image of land divided by a river setting context

Out of Context

by Dr. David Sanders As students of Kabbalah we strive to become adept at “taking” things out of context. Mastery of metaphor, seeing the parallels between the abstract and the concrete underlies our spiritual awareness.