how things might be different. There was even a Jewish King of Fools, cleaned up and made respectable. R. Yuspa Shamos tells us that in Worms the students of the Yeshivah came to the synagogue on the Shabbat after Purim , dressed in all their dignity, led by one of their number who they called head of the students. He was dressed as a fool. They sat on the bimah taking the place of the community dignitaries. The rabbi blesses them and then they enter the women's section for the Rebitizin’s blessing.*
In Italy , the rise of the commedia dell’arte consolidated the use of masks and gave them an artistic character. *® The various characters represented by the masks were universal types. These masked entertainments occurred not only on Purim but also at wedding celebrations. The stage, like the carnival, is an alternate reality. It presents life within three walls, welcoming the observer to become part of its reality; a product of the Renaissance , it spread across Europe . Glickel of Hameln tells of the celebration of the greatest moment in the life of her family, the marriage of her daughter , Zipporah to Kossman Gomperz, the son of Prussia’s most important Jew , Elia Gomperz. Part of the glorious celebration, attended by the heir to the Prussian throne and other aristocrats, was a group of“masked performers who bowed prettily and played all manners of entertaining pranks. They concluded their performance with a truly splendid Dance of Death.* This was not what it sounds like, but was a stylized dance of familiar types of humans who did a kind of burlesque. All this happened in the presence of Glickel’s Rabbi Meir . He did not object but apparently was so engrossed in the proceedings that he forgot to write the Ketuvah and had to read one out of a book.
Wedding parties have some of the celebratory aspects of Purim . There is an abandonment of stability, a letting go. Marriages were financial arrangements between parents rather than the romantic joining of lovers. They were celebrations of wealth and power. But still there was drink and entertainment that challenges the normal order of life. The most important thing was not coming under the Huppah but partaking in the banquet. The hupah represented order and continuity. The couple stood in the presence of a representative of the community and the families and consented to become husband and wife. But at the banquet, chaos reigned; the new world of bride and groom emerged from