(RNS) — We’ve been talking a lot about cover-ups lately, especially as we consider the Jeffrey Epstein case. But perhaps the deadliest cover-up of all has been the covering of faces of those determined to harm people while maintaining anonymity.
Some of the federal forces deployed this week in Washington, D.C., have been wearing masks while patrolling the peaceful streets of The Wharf and alleyways of stately Georgetown. They are seen being worn when protecting the good people of Washington from roving bands of street performers at L’Enfant Plaza and in Foggy Bottom. Who knew we would need the National Guard to protect us from jugglers and mimes?
New York, Massachusetts and California are discussing mask bans for law enforcement officers in the face of the totalitarian-style abductions by masked United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. In Los Angeles, the county supervisors have moved toward a ban.
Fighting the masks has become a means of fighting the meanness.
In Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have banned face coverings in public places in the West Bank. It seems that people who are up to no good, whether Hamas operatives or extremist settlers, tend to cover their faces.
Meanwhile, Columbia University has agreed to comply with the Trump administration’s demand for a mask ban, in an attempt to quell demonstrating by pro-Palestinian groups.
Here’s an idea: How about a mask ban for both campus provocateurs and ICE bullies, and we call it even? For all those who bemoaned the mask mandates of the COVID-19 era, let’s implement a no-mask mandate, except where health conditions require them.
Some trace mask bans to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, others to Guy Fawkes, the patron saint of creepy mask faces who attempted to blow up the House of Lords in London in 1605. These days, European countries seem to be far ahead of us in banning masked protests.
Jews have been masking mischievously on Purim for centuries, but not with criminal intent, just a little imbibing and theological grappling over the hiddenness of God.
However, today, this disease of hate, unlike the pandemic we recently endured, seems to spread via the covered face, not the uncovered one. The masked countenance conjures an illusion of anonymity and invulnerability.
That’s why I disagree with the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes anti-mask mandates. It’s less a question of free speech than public safety. Even if we were to assume all ICE agents were well-meaning, which certainly is not the case, the masks create opportunities for imposters to impersonate law enforcement and attack innocents, and that is precisely what is happening.
We need to get the masks off the streets.
Masked federal agents escort a family to a transport bus after they were detained following an appearance at immigration court, July 22, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
There is nothing so honest and authentic as the human face. Even when covered, even when altered by cosmetic surgery, something of a person’s basic humanity glows through. When we think of human beings being created in God’s image, we are thinking first and foremost of the revealed face. Often in the Bible, when people seek God or wish for God not to be hidden, the metaphor of the face is employed. Psalm 27 is case in point:
In Your behalf my heart says:
“Seek My face!”
O LORD, I seek Your face.
Do not hide Your face from me;
do not thrust aside Your servant in anger;
You have ever been my help.
In Hebrew, the tone of this plea approaches desperation — the word “face” is repeated three times in three lines. The psalmist thirsts to see God’s face, or at least spend his life’s journey seeking it.
Love unmasks the divine face. When unmasked, a human face that incorporates God’s image and divine love is present, and hate dissipates.
Rabbi Danielle Upbin writes of Psalm 27: “The face of a person is the entryway into their subjective life. It is through a smile, through subtle changes of expression, and above all, through the eyes that we discern a person’s thoughts and feelings, which words sometimes only hint at, or mask. The entreaty to see God’s face is a plea to enter this inward place, to find understanding, to come to know God fully and thereby find comfort.”
“Poker Face” is the most important TV series right now because it captures the zeitgeist and expresses our greatest fears and hopes. In it, Natasha Lyonne plays a woman who has a unique ability to detect lies. Part of the reason it resonates so much is because it seems like almost everything around us right now is a lie. Artificial intelligence has made it impossible even to believe what we see with our own eyes. We all wish we had someone like Lyonne’s character around to determine who’s lying and who’s not.
But not even AI can cover up a live face. The face — both human and animal — has become virtually the only place where we can still find complete authenticity and honesty, perhaps in the face of a child most of all. But even a face calloused by a lifetime of lies cannot completely hide.
Which is why all the masks must come off — now more than ever: to see the face of God.
(Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is the author of “Mensch-Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi” and “Embracing Auschwitz: Forging a Vibrant, Life-Affirming Judaism That Takes the Holocaust Seriously.” See more of his writing at his Substack page, “In This Moment.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
