Calming the Water: A Morning Reflection on Proverbs

0:00 Good morning, and welcome. It's Sunday, the seventh of Cheshvan, in the year 5787. The holidays of Tishrei are behind us. The shofar, the fast, the sukkah, the dancing with the Torah scrolls, all of it has been put away. Tradition calls this month Mar Cheshvan. Mar means bitter, and the name is usually explained by one fact: this month has no festivals at all.

0:35 It's just ordinary days. Ordinary people, in ordinary rooms, meeting each other again. There's an old detail connected to today's date. In the Second Temple era, around 230 BCE, the seventh of Cheshvan was when the pilgrim who lived farthest away, on the banks of the Euphrates, a fifteen day journey from Jerusalem, finally reached home after Sukkot.

1:04 Only once he was home did everyone begin to pray for rain. So today marks the moment when the whole community was back in its own kitchens and streets. Back among neighbors. And that makes it a fitting morning for a verse from the Book of Proverbs, Mishlei, chapter 27, verse 19. Here it is in Hebrew.

1:29 Kamayim hapanim lapanim, ken lev ha adam la adam.

1:36In English As face answers to face in water, so does one person's heart to

1:42 another's. Let me unpack a few words. Mayim means water. Before there was silvered glass, still water was the mirror. You bent over a pool and there was your face. Panim means face, and it's a plural word in Hebrew. A face is never just one thing. It's a whole collection of expressions. Lev means heart, but not only the heart of romance.

2:12 In the Bible the lev is where you think, where your conscience lives, where your intentions are formed. And adam simply means a human being, any human being. Now think about water as a mirror. It's not like glass. Glass reflects whatever stands in front of it, no matter how you feel. Water is gentler and more sensitive.

2:39 Wind ruffles it. A stone breaks it. And it only gives you a clear face when it's calm. Rashi, the great medieval commentator, says it in one short line: As in water, the face that you show it, it shows you. Metzudat David, another commentator, spells it out. If the face looking down is smiling, the water smiles.

3:06 If the face is sad, the water is sad. And so, he says, with the heart of a person toward a friend. If your heart is good toward someone, it draws goodness out of theirs. The Talmud, in tractate Yevamot, page 117a, uses this verse in a very human setting. The discussion is about whether someone can be trusted to testify about a person they might resent.

3:37 And the sages say that feelings run both ways. If you're hostile to someone, they usually feel it, and they're hostile back. The verse isn't a moral lecture. It's closer to an observation of how people actually work. But there's another voice on that same page. Rabbi Yehuda says the verse is really about words of Torah.

4:03 Just as water gives back the face you bring to it, Torah gives back the attention you bring to it. Come with patience and warmth, and the text opens. Come hurried and cold, and you get a surface. The same mirror, you see, works for a person and for a page. One more teaching, and this one comes from the Hasidic tradition.

4:30 It's quoted in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, in the book Or HaChochma. He pictures someone standing at the edge of the water. Standing tall, the person sees a long shadow stretched across the surface. But as the person bends lower, the shadow shrinks. And only when the face comes down close to the water does the face in the water come up to meet it.

4:59 Face to face, panim el panim. He says the same is true between people. When I'm all height and importance, the other person grows tall too, and we stand there casting shadows at each other. When I make myself smaller, when I put down my defensiveness, the other person feels safe enough to do the same.

5:25 And then we meet as equals. I find that a very practical picture. The shadow is my ego. It blocks the reflection. So here's a thought for today. Think about the first person you'll speak to. Maybe it's a partner or a child. Maybe a coworker, or the person making your coffee, or a neighbor on the stairs.

5:50 Before you say a word, take one breath. Notice what your face is already saying. Is it tense, rushed, braced for the day? That's what will probably come back to you. The sages have a phrase for the alternative: sever panim yafot, a pleasant, welcoming countenance. It's not a fake smile. It's an unhurried, generous face, with a quiet wish for the other person's good behind it.

6:22 You're not trying to change them. You're just calming the water. And if the other person is still grumpy, that's all right too. You haven't failed. You've simply offered the clearest reflection you could, and sometimes it takes a little while to reach the surface. Let me close with a blessing, in the spirit of the Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers, chapter 6.

6:49There the words are Ya'er Adonai panav elekha.

6:54 May the Eternal make His face shine toward you. So may your face shine today, and may you meet faces that shine back. May you find a calm surface wherever you look, in the water, in the people you love, and in the people you've only just met. May your heart be open, and may the hearts you meet answer in kind.

7:20 May this be a day of reciprocal kindness and quiet peace. Shalom, and a good morning to you.