What’s in a smile? It is said that the eyes are windows of the soul. With eye contact you see into them. A smile is the touching of souls. By smiling at someone you shine onto them.
By way of introduction – We learn about God’s qualities through seeing the behavior displayed by those qualities.
One of God’s qualities is called he’arat panim (glowing, or shining His face). Where do we learn about God’s glow? When the Biblical Israelites were slaves in Egypt and God was still ‘hiding His face’ they were enslaved to their taskmasters. As soon as God shined His countenance upon them they were redeemed. The meaning of this shining is that God “lifted up His countenance toward them and drew them into his consciousness.” (Nachmanides)
We learn from this that consciousness is one of the divine qualities and that it is expressed as a ‘shining face.’
Since we were created in God’s image we emulate God in those same ways of being. (God’s name then becomes known in the world through the sparks of Godliness in the world, namely us, emulating Godly qualities.)
Thus we too have the ability to either hide our face from or shine our face on, other people.
And since consciousness means you’ve touched your core self, we can be a light to people who are suffering. This is the power of a smile…
When the reality you’re in doesn’t touch your core self (i.e. your consciousness) there is hidden-ness instead. Something is blocking your light, your awesome precious light from reaching them.
When the reality confronting you touches you to the core your light shines.
We glow because of the soul/Godliness/spirituality/humaneness within us. There is a disagreement among the commentaries over what the preciousness of this glow consists of. Is it a ‘spirit of holiness’ (Rashi/Rabbenu Asher) or is it instinctual sense, ex. knock before entering? (Rabbenu Yona)
The author of “Chapters of the Acquisition of Consciousness see this as a quantitative disagreement, not a qualitative one. The common denominator for both is the core self.
If we look within we find inherent common sense and wisdom. At the other end of the same spectrum is a spirit of holiness – the mystery of the deepest knowing we can attain by looking into the self.
This spirit of holiness is not the same as prophecy. Prophecy is something a person is endowed with from above. A spirit of holiness comes from looking within.
Consciousness means awareness of our glow or inner beauty and the inner beauty of every human being in this world. Just as we can explore the outer galaxies we can explore the inner depths of our own humanity and find hidden talents, wisdom, human decency, a spirit of holiness and loving-kindness. This is what shines forth when we smile.