Chapter 27 of Mishlei deals with the relationship between man and his fellow and between man and his Maker, and with one recurring internal law: what a person gives is what returns to him. In the three verses before us, we will see this in Torah and mitzvos ("He who tends a fig tree"), in man's relations with his fellow and with his Creator ("As water reflects a face to a face"), and finally in the other side of the coin - the eye that is never satisfied.
נֹצֵר תְּאֵנָה יֹאכַל פִּרְיָהּ וְשֹׁמֵר אֲדֹנָיו יְכֻבָּד׃ (כז, יח) - "He who tends a fig tree shall eat its fruit, and he who guards his master shall be honored" (27:18).
The Vilna Gaon (Gra) explains: There are three dimensions in man - Torah, mitzvos, and derech eretz (a way of life). "He who tends a fig tree" refers to Torah. Just as with a fig tree, whenever you inspect it you find ripe fruit on it, so it is with Torah: the more a person meditates upon it, the more flavor, novel insights, and reasoning he discovers within it, and one never tires of reviewing it.
Yet here a crucial point must be emphasized: when a person learns, and when a person teaches - on the contrary, let him always renew himself! There is a vast difference between reviewing a sugya and discovering another angle, another depth, another contemplation within it, and merely reciting the exact same thing again and again. There was a person who used to come once a year to fundraise for a major organization, and he would tell a story and share a devar Torah - the exact same story and the exact same devar Torah, year after year, for fifteen years. Who knows whether he relied on the short memory of the audience, but he felt no need to renew himself, to add an idea, or to say something different. As far as he was concerned, it was a "winning story," and he repeated it endlessly.
This is also a potential pitfall for a fourth-grade rebbe: year after year, he teaches the exact same material. In the end, he knows Sefer Bamidbar only up to the chapter reached that school year, and he knows only the specific Gemara sugya he teaches - while everything else remains a black hole. Ask him about another area of Torah, and he is unfamiliar with it. It is critically important for a person to study everything and advance, for otherwise he remains stuck in the same place. "He who tends a fig tree" refers to the Torah, where as long as one guards it, reviews it, and meditates upon it, he finds fruit and flavor within it - provided that he seeks out new perspectives, fresh ideas, and deeper insight.
"And he who guards his master shall be honored" - this refers to one who guards the mitzvos of his Master, specifically the negative commandments introduced with expressions of caution like "beware" (hishamer), "lest" (pen), and "do not" (al). This also refers to a way of life (derech eretz): a person who cleaves to his Maker, walking in His ways to cling to Him. And just as a person clings to Hashem, so the Holy One, blessed be He, cleaves to him - literally as water reflects a face to a face. This is the meaning of the verse, "And upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man": all the prophets perceived Him in the likeness of a man, and the Gra explains that because the prophet is a human being, the Holy One, blessed be He, reveals Himself to him in the likeness of a man. To the degree that man draws near to the Holy One, blessed be He, so the Holy One draws near to him, as it says, "Hashem is your shade upon your right hand."
כַּמַּיִם הַפָּנִים לַפָּנִים כֵּן לֵב הָאָדָם לָאָדָם׃ (כז, יט) - "As water reflects a face to a face, so the heart of man reflects man to man" (27:19).
Rashi explains: Just like water - the face you show into it is the face it reflects back to you. If you smile into the water, it smiles back at you; if you show it an angry face, it shows an angry face back to you. "So the heart of man reflects man to man" - so it is with a person toward his fellow: one who knows that his fellow loves him shows him a cheerful countenance, and one who knows that his fellow is angry at him shows him an angry countenance.
The Gra likewise explains the verse according to its plain meaning: as the face a person shows to the water, so is the face the water reflects back to him. He adds: even though another person's heart is not openly known - one does not know what is in his fellow's heart toward him - Chazal said, "What is in your heart toward your friend is in his heart toward you." The attitude you extend toward your fellow is the attitude he extends toward you. From here stems practical counsel: a person who wishes to arouse the love of his fellow toward himself should arouse great love in his own heart toward his fellow - and this will cause his fellow to return love to him as well, for as water reflects a face to a face, so the heart of man reflects man to man.
The Malbim explains this according to the natural order: the heart pumps blood to all the organs and vitalizes them, and all the organs return the choice blood back to the heart. There is a reciprocal feedback loop between the heart and the organs and between the organs and the heart, and the heart returns to man what it received from him. This is similar to water: a person presents his face to the water, and the water reflects back to the beholder's eye the exact same image it received from him.
The Malbim further says: "The heart tells man what his speech is" - all of man's faculties are reflected in the heart; the heart envisions all of his powers. And just as the form of a person's face is seen in water, so too the future and what is destined to occur are sensed in the heart - and note well, in the heart, not in the intellect. When a person wants to say that he had a strong premonition that so-and-so would act in a certain way, he does not say, "I had a feeling in my intellect," but rather, "I had a feeling in my heart." When something stems from an intuitive feeling regarding the future rather than cold, intellectual analysis, we attribute it to the heart.
The Malbim continues: this has an analogy in the collective heart of the collective body. The king is the heart of the state, and the talmid chacham is the heart of the congregation. In properly run countries, the tax you pay is essentially for your own benefit - what you give returns to you. It may seem to you that you gave and suffered a loss, but the paved roads and the public order you enjoy exist thanks to that very tax.
So too with a talmid chacham, who is the heart of the community: what you give to support a talmid chacham brings down all the bounty, for "the entire world is sustained for the sake of Chanina My son." You might feel that you suffered a loss, but the very existence of the world endures through the power of the sage and his Torah. It turns out that you actually received - what you gave has returned to you.
Above all of these, Hashem is the heart of creation. The more a person directs his heart toward his Father in Heaven, his Father in Heaven reciprocates - and there, it is multiplied manifold. A person may feel that he dedicated his time, that he exerted himself, or even spent money; yet whatever you dedicate for the Master of the World, the Master of the World repays you many times over. Just as the heart bestows upon the organs and receives from them in return, so too man gives, as it were, to the Holy One, blessed be He - but in truth, he is giving to himself and receiving in return.
The Malbim further adds: Zion, which is Jerusalem, is also the heart of the Land of Israel. There they brought burnt offerings, sacrifices, and bikkurim - seemingly a place of immense outlay. Yet from there, divine abundance flowed to the entire world, for there Hashem commanded the blessing. Here, too, the heart's characteristics are evident: the giver is the receiver. You give to Zion, to Jerusalem, to the Beit HaMikdash - and you receive manifold more than what you gave.
One cannot conclude the verse, "As water reflects a face to a face," without citing the famous explanation of the Vilna Gaon. The Gaon analyzes carefully: What did King Solomon teach us through this, and what moral lesson emerges from here? He offers a wonderful explanation: If you examine the letters of the Aleph-Beit, you will find that in almost all letters, the revealed part and the concealed part are unequal. In the letter Aleph (א) - the revealed letter has a value of one, while the concealed letters (ל"ף - lamed-peh) equal one hundred and ten; the concealed is far greater. In the letter Beit (ב) - the revealed is two, and the concealed (י"ת - yud-tav) is four hundred and ten. And there are letters where the concealed is smaller than the revealed: in Peh (פ) - the revealed is eighty and the concealed (י' - yud) is ten; in Kuf (ק) - the revealed is one hundred, and the concealed (ו"ף - vav-feh) is eighty-six.
There are only two letters whose revealed and concealed values are identical: Mem and Yud. In the letter Mem (מ"ם) - the revealed is mem (forty) and the concealed is mem (forty). In the letter Yud (יו"ד) - the revealed is yud (ten), and the concealed is vav-dalet (six plus four equals ten). And this is what Scripture means by "As water" (kamayim): just like the word mayim (מים), all of whose letters have equal revealed and concealed aspects - so too should be "the face to the face." A person has an outward, revealed face and an inward, concealed face: the revealed face is what he utters with his mouth, and the concealed face is the heart. A person must ensure that his revealed and concealed facets are identical - that what is in his heart is in his mouth, and what is in his mouth is in his heart, so that it is not a case of, "With his mouth he speaks peace to his neighbor, but inward he lies in ambush." This is the meaning of "so the heart of man to man": that his heart toward his fellow be like water, where the revealed and concealed are equal, and not one thing in the mouth and another in the heart.
Based on this, the Vilna Gaon explains an enigmatic Midrash (Midrash HaPeli'ah). The Midrash asks: Why did it not say, "As wine reflects a face to a face"? And it answers: "Because of an extra vav." The first part of the question is easily understood - after all, wine is dark, and an image is reflected in it even better than in water; one who looks into wine sees his reflection in the deep red of the wine. But the answer, "Because of an extra vav," is utterly cryptic.
The Vilna Gaon explains this wonderfully: Why did it not say "like wine" (keyayin)? In the letters of yayin (י-י-ן), the two letters yud indeed have equal revealed and concealed values. However, when one reaches the letter nun, there is an obstacle: nun spelled out is נ-ו-ן - the revealed letter is nun (50), while the concealed letters are vav-nun (56). Here an extra vav creates a discrepancy between the revealed and concealed. Therefore, it could not say "like wine." But in "water" (mayim - מ-י-ם) - both letters are completely identical in their revealed and concealed values. And this is precisely what we are seeking: that the revealed and concealed should be equal. This is cited in the name of the Vilna Gaon in the sefer Divrei Eliyahu.
However, it is important to emphasize: the entire subject of midreshei peliah (enigmatic Midrashim) is subject to dispute. Many say that there is no authentic source for these enigmatic Midrashim - nearly all of them lack a source, originating instead as rhetorical riddles crafted by preachers that came to be known as a "Midrash Peliah." Yet some seek to prove from this explanation that the Vilna Gaon himself gave weight to a Midrash Peliah. There are other well-known enigmatic Midrashim: "One dons tefillin only on Shabbat," "The righteous do not benefit from theft and say Kedorlaomer," and the like, which preachers endeavor to resolve and explain. Sometimes the analytical ingenuity used to interpret and uphold the Midrash is truly marvelous - yet in many cases, scholars question whether such a Midrash ever existed at all.
שְׁאוֹל וַאֲבַדֹּה לֹא תִשְׂבַּעְנָה וְעֵינֵי הָאָדָם לֹא תִשְׂבַּעְנָה׃ (כז, כ) - "Sheol and destruction are never satisfied, and the eyes of man are never satisfied." (27:20)
First, a grammatical note: va'avaddoh is written with a hei (ואבדה), while the keri is read with a vav (ואבדו). Some commentators here, when interpreting the verse, read "Sheol and Avaddon" - but this is a printer's error, confusing it with another verse where it indeed says "Sheol and Avaddon," whereas here the text is va'avado without a nun, as noted by the Minchat Shai.
Rashi explains: "Sheol and Avaddah are never satisfied" - from receiving the wicked into them, just as the eyes of man are never satisfied from roaming after the evil inclination and gratifying his desires. The two correspond: just as man's eyes are never satisfied from pursuing his desires, so Sheol and destruction are never satisfied when the wicked are brought into them.
The three verses teach a single principle: "He who guards the fig tree shall eat its fruit" - he who guards his Torah learning, constantly reviewing and discovering renewed depth within it, eats its fruit; and "he who tends to his master shall be honored" - he who cleaves to his Creator finds his Creator cleaving to him. "As water reflects face to face" - just like the heart, which gives to the limbs and receives from them, so is the relationship between man and his fellow, between a citizen and the community, between a supporter and a Torah scholar, and between man and his Maker, Who rewards twofold. And according to the Vilna Gaon, a profound moral lesson is added here: just as with the word mayim, where the revealed and concealed are equal, so must be the heart of man - one should never be one way with the mouth and another in the heart. Standing in stark contrast to this wholeness is the final verse: the eye of man, like Sheol and destruction, is never satisfied.