To See a Face is to Accept the Kingdom of Heaven

1. The Talmud asks the question why God needed to create each of us with a different face. In fact the Talmud gives not one answer but two.

That if each of us looked the same, it would lead to theft. That if each of us looked the same, it would lead to adultery.

If each of us looked the same, the fabric of the world would come undone. Theft. If all the world shared one face I could walk into your house. I could steal all your things and I could walk away and not be punished. Because no one would know that I am not you. And so everything in every house would be mine for the taking. My face would become a mask that would hide me.

Adultery. In the world of one face I could walk into your bedroom, and climb into your bed, and your wife would not know that I am not you as she opens her arms up, and spreads her legs out; and gladly, sweetly, lovingly takes me inside of her like a lover, like a dear friend.

2. There is an argument in the Talmud as to when the dawn begins. One opinion says it is when you can tell the difference between the color azure and the color leek-green. Another opinion has it that it is when you can tell the difference between a dog and a wolf. A third opinion says it is when you can tell the difference between someone you know casually well and someone you don’t know at all, from slightly far away. These distinctions—between colors, between animals, between people—are always there. But it is only with the dawn that these distinctions become visible. It is only with the dawn that that these distinctions appear to us, and make us see.

It is only with the dawn, for instance, that one person—who is entirely different from the next—looks different from the next. It is only with the dawn, for instance, that I—who look nothing like your husband—begin to look different from your husband.

3. The passages of the Shema are the passages that we say twice daily through which we accept the Kingdom of God. We say them in the morning and we say them in the night and they speak of our belief that God is One, and that He watches us, and that because we love God and He watches us we must constantly be good.

We say the Shema of the morning from the dawn, but not before. And so the dawn is the dividing line between when we accept the Kingdom of God for the starting day, and when the starting day has not yet begun.

You do not say the Shema in the morning before you can see the difference between the color azure-blue and the color leek-green.

You do not say the Shema in the morning before you can see the difference between the shape of a dog and the shape of a wolf. You do not say the Shema in the morning before you can see the difference between one face and a different face. You do not say the Shema in the morning before you can see why each face you pass is wholly different from any other face you will ever look at, or will ever walk by, or will ever see.