Windows to the Soul

One day, an adviser to President Lincoln brought to the White House a man whom he thought Lincoln should appoint as a cabinet secretary. The president met with the man and interviewed him. After the guest left the White House, Lincoln called his adviser into the Oval Office and said, “This man won’t do for the job.”

“Why not?” the adviser asked.

“I don’t like his face.”

“B-b-but—“ stammered the adviser, “that’s unfair! A man can’t help what his face looks like.”

“You’re right,” the president replied. “Up to age forty, he can’t. After age forty, his face is him.”

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Buried Treasure

In Hebrew, words with the same consonants are usually related and they are frequently pronounced similarly. In fact, the Hebrew scriptures frequently play with words that sound similar ... in Hebrew! (Usually these puns do not translate well into English.) The Hebrew word for “face” is panim, while p’nim is the Hebrew word for “inside.” You have heard the old saying, “The eyes are the windows of the soul,” but in Hebrew one concludes that the face is the window to the soul.

What idioms do we have in English about faces?

It is usually an insult to say that someone is two-faced (Was that one of your idioms?). However, do you show the same face at church as at home, at work, with strangers, while shopping? Panim is actually a plural noun, so in Hebrew it is expected that you have more than one face. After all, you are complicated! What are some of your faces?

Jacob Wrestles With God: Genesis 32:22-30

Notes:
“Jacob” means “grasper” or “deceiver”.
“Israel” means “he wrestles with God.”
“Peniel” means “face of God.”

What faces did Jacob have?
What did God see in Jacob’s face?
What did Jacob see in God’s face?
What is the significance of the other man remaining unnamed?

Closing Thought: There is no word in Hebrew for “hero.” Moshe Dayan, the Jewish military leader, was a great soldier, but also an adulterer and a man with serious flaws. Ariel Sharon said of Dayan, “He would wake up with a hundred ideas. Of them ninety-five were dangerous; three more were bad; the remaining two, however, were brilliant.” If a hero is somebody we could profitably imitate, perhaps the lesson of panim is that everyone is too complex to imitate completely (and perhaps you are too complex to be a total failure at everything).