At a Purim-themed burlesque show last night, I felt a definite sense that something progressive was unfolding around me. People of many ethnicities, faiths, and orientations were gathered at the gay bar to celebrate a classic tale of speaking truth to power. The energy at the bar was suffused with the spirit of something, but was it progress? Can dressing in drag actually move anything forward? How do belly dancers bring about change? It was not your standard Purim spiel, but burlesque does lend itself nicely to the Purim festival, as costumes and revelry factor heavily into the observance.
The rabbi took the stage after the belly dance act. He was dressed as a bad seventies comedian, with ruffled pink tux and a bicycle horn. After a few really bad jokes, he became very serious, and there, on stage at the gay bar, surrounded by drag kings and fire eaters, he delivered a sermon that succinctly confirmed my personal definition of progressivism.
Purim commemorates the story of Queen Esther, who became a Babylonian queen by hiding her ethnicity from King Achashverosh. Achashverosh's evil prime minister, Haman, decreed that all Jews must bow before him, but Esther's uncle, Mordecai, refused. Haman then decreed that all Jews must be killed as punishment for Mordecai's slight. Esther devised a plan that revealed Haman's vanity and her ethnicity to Achashverosh. Up until this point in the story, Achaverosh had been a selfish and tyrannical ruler over the Jews, but when he learns that the woman he loves is a Jew, he changes opinion of her people. He allowed the Jews to defend themselves against the Persians and the Jews prevailed.
Most Purim spiels laud Esther and Mordecai as the underdog heroes, but the rabbi at the burlesque show offered a different perspective. While it is always heroic to speak truth to power, he asserted, it is more heroic to awaken to injustice and to use the power that we have, wherever we have it, on whatever scale, to overturn those injustices. That, in my mind, is the definition of progress.
Drag kings and belly dancers ushered this thought into the minds of several hundred people. Did they change any governmental policies last night? No, but in trying on the role of another personality, they offered the audience insight into the ways we restrict ourselves to acceptable roles, roles that seldom help us tap into our real power as forward thinking individuals.
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