We continue with the Alter Rebbe's explanation of King Solomon's words, «As water reflects a face back to a face, so one man's heart to another.» First the mashal, the analogy: when a person looks into water, he sees there exactly the same image he presented to it. This is a simple fact of life that everyone knows, except that King Solomon adds a point to it: it is a necessity, it is nature. It is simply impossible for a person to show the water one face and receive back a different one.
[There is a humorous explanation told: why does a horse that comes to drink from the river kick at the water until it settles down? Because as he comes to drink he sees another horse in the water coming to take his water, so he kicks at him; and once the water is muddied he no longer sees him, as if he has chased him away, and now he drinks in peace. Sometimes people behave in exactly this way. And it has already been said: if a person sees in the mirror that his face is dirty, he should not try to clean the mirror, since what a person sees in the mirror is precisely what he himself put there.]
So too, King Solomon teaches, in the relationship between one person and another: when a person shows a heart of love to his fellow, it is a necessity that his fellow will awaken love toward him in return. This is nature, exactly as with the water: it cannot be that he shows one face and receives back another.
And from here comes the mussar, the practical lesson: when a person sees that he is receiving less from another than he would like, whether between friends, between husband and wife, in any situation at all, let him know that this is what he himself showed. One who wants to receive love should invest love, and he will receive love. But one must not give in order to receive, for then it is not true giving; when a person truly gives, he reveals genuine love, and King Solomon promises that it will inevitably come back to him. If you want a Jew to love you, love him, and then he will love you as well.
In the words of the Tanya: «כמו שכדמות וצורת הפנים שהאדם מראה במים, כן נראה לו שם במים אותה צורה עצמה» (just as the likeness and form of the face that a person shows to the water is the very same form that appears to him there in the water), and just as this is so in nature and in reality, so «ככה ממש לב האדם הנאמן באהבתו לאיש אחר» (exactly so is the heart of a man who is faithful in his love for another), one who loves his fellow with a true and faithful love, «הרי אהבה זו מעוררת אהבה בלב חבירו אליו גם כן, להיות אוהבים נאמנים זה לזה» (this love awakens love in his fellow's heart toward him as well, so that they become faithful lovers of one another).
And yet attention is required: if a person turns his head away and busies himself with other matters, his fellow's love will not act upon him, because he is not standing in front of the «mirror.» But if he will take it to heart and reflect upon it, even if his friend is at this moment at the other end of the world, and think about what the other person is thinking about him, and that he is broadcasting love toward him, he will suddenly notice that his own heart has picked up that frequency of love.
This love exists even when it is not visibly expressed: the friend shows nothing outwardly, does not speak to him and does not extend a hand, he sits quietly by himself, yet inwardly he is genuinely thinking of him and loves him, and the person senses it and loves him back. We see this in reality again and again: a person walks into a place and feels a positive, good atmosphere there, because the people who live there carry in their hearts love of others and ahavas Yisrael; and the reverse, he walks into a tense place and feels the tension in the air without anyone having said a word to him. And even if sometimes it is not visible on the surface, King Solomon's words hold true in this matter.
And the Alter Rebbe adds in particular: when it is not merely that his fellow thinks of him and loves him in his heart, but he actually shows him his love in deed, not with a «bear hug» which is not love at all, but with actions whose entire intent is for his good, then a person simply melts, and there is no way he can stand up against it, unless the other one's heart is exceedingly sealed shut, as will be explained further on.
In a Jewish town there was a very wealthy man, a strongman and a violent one, who controlled every single matter in the shul and demanded that they give him whichever aliyos he desired. He even paid for them, but since he was violent, everyone was afraid of him. A new rav came to the town, and when he saw what was going on he decided that he had to act: this man is not educated, no one ever trained him, he grew up like a child who was never educated, and he needs to be educated. The rav went over to the gabbai and told him: this coming Shabbos he wants the honored aliyah of shishi, I will be called up for shishi. And indeed the rav took the aliyah that the man wanted, went over to him, and in the course of things he even had to give him a slap in the face in front of everyone. That man did not have the nerve to go up against the rav, but he looked for a way to bring him down.
The rav was also a mohel. One day the shamash of the beis din was sitting there, and a Jew came in and informed him that the rav was being invited to serve as mohel in a certain village. The road to that village passes through a forest, and the shamash smelled something: there is no bris there and nothing at all, it is a trap set for the rav, to get him out of the city and deal with him there. He said to the rav: I suspect that strongman is behind this business, there is nothing there, do not go. The rav answered him: they are inviting me, so I am going, and I am not afraid of anything. Said the shamash: in that case, I am coming with you.
They reached the forest, and they saw from a distance a group of violent strongmen with that man at their head approaching. The shamash was trembling and had no idea what would be, while the rav sat calmly and was not worried about a thing. And when they came close to one another, the strongman walked up to the rav, fell upon him and embraced him: «Honored Rav, I am truly sorry, I have done teshuvah.»
Afterward the shamash asked the rav: «What happened here? How did you pull off such hocus pocus, are you a worker of miracles?» The rav answered him: «There is no miracle here at all. I too knew what was about to happen, and the whole way I forced into my heart every thought in the world: how much I love him, and how much I truly love him, and what a Jew with a neshamah he is. The whole time I was awakening love for him, and I knew that if I would awaken love toward him, that would act upon him, and nothing else would act upon him.» And so it was in fact: once he arrived and saw such waves of love coming from the rav toward him, he was incapable of doing anything to him, and he melted on the spot.
This is the path that King Solomon gives a Jew, and this is how the Alter Rebbe explains his words.
And what does all of this have to do with a person's own avodah in awakening love for the Almighty? Before he reaches the nimshal, the application to the Almighty, the Alter Rebbe goes on to describe the matter in physical terms almost to the end of the page, and he does so by raising the level of the one who loves and lowering the level of the one who is loved: if the two people are equals, certainly the love of one awakens the love of his fellow. But if the one who loves is a distinguished person, a great rav, and the one loved is an ordinary person, when the ordinary person sees that the great rav loves him so much, his response will be with a love that is greater still. And how much more so when the one who loves is the king.
In the words of the Tanya: «והנה זהו טבע הנהוג במדת כל אדם» (now this is the nature that prevails in the character of every man), the nature that love awakens love operates in the makeup of every person, and this will be the response of any normal human being. «אף אם שניהם שוים במעלה» (even if the two are equal in standing), even if the lover and the beloved are on the same level and of the same type of people, when one reveals love the other is awakened with love as well. And from here, «ועל אחת כמה וכמה» (how much more so):
«אם מלך גדול ורב» (if a great and mighty king), great in a physical sense and mighty in quality: great, wealthy, and of high caliber, «מראה אהבתו הגדולה והעצומה» (shows his great and mighty love).
«לאיש הדיוט ונבזה ושפל אנשים, ומנוול המוטל באשפה» (to a common man, despised and lowliest of men, a repulsive figure lying in the garbage heap). And to whom is he showing this love? Not to a king like himself, but to a plain and despised man, whom everyone scorns and who is not accepted in society, filthy and repulsive so that one cannot even come near him, lying in the refuse. From one extreme to the other.
«ויורד אליו ממקום כבודו עם כל שריו יחדיו» (and he descends to him from his place of honor together with all his ministers), the exalted and great king leaves his palace and goes down to that repulsive man lying in the garbage, and not secretly so that no one should see, but with all the honor in the world: with his entire entourage and ministers, and they all walk to the garbage dump.
«ומקימו ומרימו מאשפתו» (and he raises him up and lifts him from his garbage heap), he lifts him out of the refuse, cleans him off and changes his clothes.
«ומכניסו להיכלו, היכל המלך, חדר לפנים מחדר» (and brings him into his palace, the royal palace, chamber within chamber). And he is not satisfied with that, but tells him that from now on he will come and dwell with him in the palace: he brings him into «מקום שאין כל עבד ושר נכנס שם» (a place where no servant or minister may enter), where even the ministers do not come in, and that lowliest of men suddenly finds himself in the king's inner chamber. And the king commands everyone to leave, so that he may be alone with him: to reveal deep secrets to him and to embrace him as a beloved friend.
In summary: in this section we learned the mashal of «as water reflects a face back to a face,» that just as the water shows a person the very same form that he presented to it, so it is a necessity that love a person reveals to another will awaken love in that other person's heart, and all the more so when the love is expressed in actual deeds, to the point that the person melts. We noted that attention is required in order to feel this love, even when it is not visible on the surface, and that this nature operates in the makeup of every person, even in two who are equals, and how much more so when a great and mighty king reveals immense love to a common, despised man lying in the garbage heap, descending to him from his place of honor with all his ministers, lifting him from his refuse and bringing him into his palace, chamber within chamber.
In the next section we will take up the nimshal: how all of this relates to a person's own avodah in awakening love for the Almighty.