Yom Kippur: The Pretend Primate

The Gorilla Gig

When Benjamin applied for a job at the zoo, he had visions of feeding penguins or maybe wrangling snakes, but not this. His jaw nearly hit the floor when the zoo manager handed him a gorilla suit and explained the gig. Benjamin’s pride balked, but his wallet was persuasive. He needed the job.

The gorilla enclosure, a crowd favorite, had stood empty for weeks after the sudden demise of its
previous occupant—a gastrointestinal tragedy, they said. With the zoo's finances on life support, acquiring a new gorilla was out of the question. So, in a stroke of questionable brilliance, management decided to hire someone to act like a gorilla during peak hours. Enter Benjamin, stage left.

At first, it was humiliating. The suit was stifling, the eyeholes barely offered a decent view, and the smell—dear heavens, the smell—was something between wet carpet and forgotten sandwich. But the checks cleared, and the alternative was starvation. So he adapted.

He mastered the art of the chest-thump, the lazy tree-sway, the dignified banana munch. He perfected his grunts, modulating them for curiosity, mild amusement, and even a passable melancholy. And the crowds ate it up. Children giggled, parents snapped pictures, and by the second month, he was something of a local attraction.

He was no longer Benjamin, the man down on his luck. He was Bobo, the Majestic Ape.

But then came that summer day.

The heat was merciless, and the suit felt like a wool sweater on a beach. After hours of hooting and hopping, Benjamin’s patience thinned to a single strand. That’s when a gang of boys, armed with popsicle sticks and mischief, began pelting him. At first, he tried to stay in character, swatting at them like a playful primate. But when a particularly sharp stick landed square on his nose, something snapped.

“IS THAT ANY WAY TO TREAT A GORILLA?!” he roared, yanking the sticks from his fur, his voice full of very human indignation.

A hush fell over the crowd. The boys froze. A mother gasped. A father dropped his camera.

And just like that, the illusion collapsed.

The Unmasking

The manager was waiting for him when he peeled off the suit, sweat-soaked and humiliated. His expression was grave. “You’re done.”

Benjamin gawked. “Done?! One slip, and I’m out? After all this time?”

The manager crossed his arms. “You had them fooled. They believed in Bobo, the great ape. But the moment you yelled, you reminded them of the truth—you’re not a gorilla. You’re just a man in a costume.”

Benjamin opened his mouth to argue. Then he saw himself in the glass of the office window. No suit, no fur. Just Benjamin.

And that was that.

Yom Kippur: The Day of Truth

All year, we play our parts. We wear the suits of ambition, of status, of worldly pursuits. We convince the world—and even ourselves—that this is who we are.

Then comes Yom Kippur.

On this holiest of days, we shed the disguise. We stand bare before God, stripped of pretenses and illusions. We remember that beneath the roles we play—businessman, socialite, manager, schemer—we are something more.

Like Benjamin, we might have fooled the crowd. But the holiness of Yom Kippur, spent in prayer and introspection, reminds us of the truth.

We were never the suit. We were never the ape.

We were always the soul underneath, longing to be free.