Photo Credit: Jewish Press
Long before the novel coronavirus made masks a fashionable part of a respectable wardrobe, Jews were wearing masks on Purim. And a thousand years before that, Moses covered his face with a mask because his face shone so brightly after descending from Mount Sinai (see Exodus 34:29-35).
The word the Torah uses in the latter context is â
masveh.â The word early halachic authorities use in reference to masks on Purim is â
partzufim,â which literally means faces (see
Mahari Mintz 17,
Rema to
Orach Chaim 696:8, and Rabbi Yuzpa Shamashâs account of the old traditions of the Jewish community in Worms).