CONGRUITY BETWEEN OUR INNER AND OUTER SELVES

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Mommy again, whose English and Hebrew birthdays covered 2 weeks, and the real Hebrew one is this Shabbos!

Mazal Tov to Penina whose birthday is next week. Wishing you a year of much achievement and joy for you and the whole Family!

And then there are 2 Mazal Tovs for the Davidoffs in Sharon:

Mazal Tov Reuven on your birthday. Wishing you continued success in everything that you do Reuven. Thanks for always being there when we need medical advice!

Mazal Tov to Perry whose birthday is 1 day earlier. We hope all is going well with you. We need another simchah to get together again. Wishing you a wonderful year!

In this week's Sedra, Vayeira, Yitzchak is born

I saw an interesting extract from a sicha of the Rebbe, speaking about our INNER AND OUTER SELVES.

Avraham's nature was Kindness.

Yitzchak's nature was Severity or Strictness.

Right from birth our faces reflect our inner personalities

The Hebrew word for face is panim, and for inside it is pnimius, and as can be seen it has the same root.

Our inner thoughts and emotions are mirrored in our face.

This congruity (equalness) between the soul and the face is especially true for the patriarchs because there was no difference between their inner and outer lives.

THEY DID NOT PRESENT ANY FALSE FACADES TO THE WORLD.

Now the face of Yitzchak was almost identical to that of Avraham.

How could this be, because their natures were completely different!?

And it is explained, that Hashem performed a miracle for this to occur, so that people shouldn't say that Yitzchak was not Avraham's son (because 'Sarah conceived and bore to Avraham a son in his old age...' 21:2.

This teaches us a very interesting lesson.

Even though it may be demanded of us sometimes in life, to temporarily act contrary to our natural self, (FOR EXAMPLE IF WE HAVE A KIND NATURE [AVRAHAM] AND WE NEED TO EXPRESS SEVERITY [YITZCHAK]), OUR FACE - OUR OUTWARD DEMEANOUR AND BEHAVIOUR - SHOULD NEVERTHELESS STILL MAINTAIN OUR INNER NATURE OF KINDNESS!!!

Gut Shabbos to all