SMILE

SMILE

“Shammai says: … Welcome every person with a cheerful countenance.” (Pirke Avot 1:15)  This is one of many Torah’s teaching counseling us to judge each person fairly, regardless of any other circumstances. 

Talmud Shabbat 127a teaches that there are six things that a person enjoys the benefit of in this world, and gains benefit in the world to come.  Among those six is to give one’s fellow the benefit of the doubt.  When you look for the good in other people it is amazing how often you can find it.

It would be foolish to suggest that this is as easy as it sounds.  We all carry a great many concerns with us and it is often difficult to wear a smile every day.  Nonetheless, consider how you feel when someone smiles at you.  Note the difference if some one you know smiles at you and if a stranger smiles at you.  Smiles can be contagious.

Ask yourself what you can do to remind yourself to smile.  You might carry some special object that will remind you to smile when you feel it in your hand.  Or you might plan to stop momentarily at the door of your home or office before going out to take a deep breath and to consciously put on a smile.  Or you might place a “smiley face” (they were first created in Worcester, MA) near your door or in your car as a reminder. 

In his book, Jewish Spiritual Practice (pg 216), Yitzhak Buxbaum recounts the story of Rabbi Aryeh Levin, the Rabbi of the Western Wall who passed away in 1969.  He “wrote in his ethical will: ‘I was very careful to receive everyone cheerfully, until this became second nature to me.  I was careful, too, to take the initiative in greeting everyone.’ (A Tzaddik in Our Time, p. 464)

 When he greeted someone, Reb Aryeh would take that person’s hands in his own and hold them in a loving, caressing way that would be electric with holiness, sending God’s energy directly into his heart.”

Reb Aryeh sets a high standard for all of us, but with a smile and a cheerful attitude you too can greet people with holiness.