Straight to the Eyes

We sat on the grass, children aged nine. One of the friends suggested, "Let's play 'Who Blinks First!'" The game began, two of the guys sat face to face, staring into each other's eyes. A long minute passed as the friends sat around watching the competitors, eager to see who would win. Suddenly, a cheer erupted from the group, the game ended with one of the competitors as the victor.

An unusual game. Many remember this childhood game but don't often consider its essence. What did the children mean by 'Who Blinks First'? And who won, and why?

As is known, children are closer than adults to their spiritual roots. Therefore, they play and react in actions that indicate depths that we, the grown-ups, have worn away. For example, children fear the dark, and we adults convince them there's nothing to fear. That's simply not true, as we also fear it; they just openly express the truth. Furthermore, the Sages teach us the secret of darkness in the world, representing concealment and obscurity, and being a foundation for physical and spiritual dangers. And the child, as mentioned, is closer to their Creator (after all, they were born not long ago...), reacts correctly without 'accounting' for those around him. He simply fears the dark. Another example, young children call out 'Mom,' 'Dad' in distress, and we, as parents, wait for 'them to get over it,' to grow up. In doing so, they maintain through the inner truth with which they were born what everyone will inevitably understand at the end, that there's no one to rely on but the supreme Father to whom he is destined to return.

Here too, even in the children's eye game, there is an inner significance inherent in the human soul.

For anyone who stops and asks themselves, which of all the organs reveals the self in the body? They would conclude that it is, of course, the eyes. The soul, the personality contained within the body, is emitted from the eyes. When is this fact most noticeable? When a person is asleep and awakens. Although the sleeper moves in their bed and is entirely before us, in fact, they are disconnected from us. Only when their eyes open, and even before they have fully awakened from their sleep, do we feel there's someone to talk to.... 'The eyes are the windows of the soul,' says the saying. Why 'windows'? Perhaps it means that what is being brewed inside, within the personality, emerges from the eyes.

The Hebrew word for 'eye' teaches us this more than anything else: "...the eye is the spring that reveals the inner self of a person. 'Eye' – as in 'spring.' Eliezer, Abraham's servant, discovered Rebecca at the 'eye,' at the spring. As is known, the eye is not just a means - an aid for a person to get oriented in space, but a primary expressive organ, a spring that gushes forth; the eye can express without words, emotions of joy, sadness, enthusiasm, fear, longing, love, and so on. The hands express a person's will, their emotions in action, while the eyes express the movements of the soul, the unpolished inner self, the... true inner self. This is in contrast to hands or speech, which usually express the person according to their choice and will. This topic, the significance of the eye, is broad and deep and relates to the way the human eye has power to influence the entire reality ('evil eye').

For our purposes, it should be said that the way a person nourishes themselves through the eye is similar to the way the digestive system operates, and we will explain:

The inner self of a person, visible from their eyes – be it with a happy, wise, questioning, or unfortunately sorrowful gaze – is built over years of education and life experiences.

A person absorbs countless experiences throughout their life through the eyes, and they join their 'spring,' their eye, their 'gaze.' From here, the manner in which they absorb, judge, and delve (study – from the word eye and spring – goes deep) into different things in their maturity develops.

As mentioned, a superficial look at the role of the eyes seems as though they are merely tools for transferring information by capturing images from the outside and transferring them inward, but that is not their essential role. The eyes, first and foremost, provide a person with the materials to build their personality.

Everything captured by the eyes feeds the soul and affects the body and its behavior. When a person looks at something positively, 'healthily,' correctly, they are nourishing themselves with a positive 'mental food.' And if, heaven forbid, the opposite, the result will be accordingly - and it will be projected to the environment through the eye.

From this, we may perhaps understand the words of the Sages who teach us not to look at a wicked person’s face or in negative images in general, such as an angry person or the face of a dead person, among others. All these damage the depths of a person's inner self" (Atzmotai Tomarnah, p. 201).

'Look me straight in the eyes,' this expression is a call to the other to reveal the bare truth hidden beneath the human game most of us play. Why the eyes? Have you tried to demand someone tell the truth like this: Look me straight on the nose?! Certainly not. Why?

"A direct gaze into the other's eyes is a natural eye movement, a form of connection between people. The gaze is a kind of intrusion into the private domain, and therefore we do not intend to say by this that a gaze is a means of connection that is good to maintain always, since there are restrictions and conditions according to halacha and ethics, and see Ramban's letter to his son.

Maintaining a high-level gaze: For a child and an adult, such a gaze indicates sincerity, a person who is at peace with themselves, with their words and deeds, their mouth and heart aligned, inside like outside, proving and judging from an inner truth, not feeling guilty, avoiding conflict.

Maintaining a low-level gaze: Not intending harm, unaware of intruding into the 'private domain,' placing their eyes on everything their gaze meets, unaware of negative situations around them.

Maintaining a negative-level gaze: Rude, allowing themselves to invade another's inner self, shameless, trespassing." (Atzmotai Tomarnah, ibid)

In contrast to the direct gaze stands the very indirect gaze.

It is very unpleasant when our interlocutor moves their gaze from side to side just to avoid meeting our gaze, a person who averts their gaze in all directions to avoid looking at who they are speaking with. Why do they do this? The one avoiding the gaze fears being caught in internal disharmony, insincerity, or a lie, feeling distressed, guilty, trying to evade or defend themselves.

Sometimes a person averts their gaze because they or their interlocutor are saying difficult or embarrassing things. By the way, restless eyes reveal that each person knows deeply by nature, the 'secret of the eyes,' the expressive spring, and therefore in a state of distress, they avoid exposing the depths of their soul to another.

Likewise, it could be a person inclined to say something different to everyone out of necessity to maintain good relations, or it is a situation where a person is torn between two worlds - a moral world and an immoral world.

Contracting an organ is always an act of withdrawal and distance from connecting to another. When a person frowns or gets angry, their eyebrows contract and the eyes narrow. Conversely, opening the eyes wide reveals a kind of submission and acceptance of the reality outside the observer. That's why, by the way, comedians who make up to make people laugh always paint the eyebrow very high up close to the forehead so that the eyes appear large and especially wide open, and this is one of the prominent factors that give them a charming and relatable appearance of a wondering and ready-for-anything person. A practical tip learned from this, have you tried to be angry with open and uncontracted eyes? It just doesn’t work. It's better never to reach a state of anger, but it seems that opening the eyes at such a moment could significantly diminish the anger.

The eyes connect the person from within to the surrounding them. Therefore, when a person chooses to close their eyes, they essentially want to be with themselves, and that's the meaning of the word 'closing' the eyes. To do this, the eyes need eyelids.

"The mechanical role of the eyelids is to protect the eyes from external harm and to moisten them from dryness and irritation. According to the inner meaning - these 'shutters' protect the 'windows of the soul,' the eyes, from seeing harmful sights, and the eyelids also participate with the eyes in the facial expression for the purpose of thought, concentration, and implying.

Closing the eyes allows for concentration of thought and the attempt to realize the thought, isolation, and faith, distancing from what is unimportant, adherence.

* Forcibly closing eyes expresses: Special concentration, a gesture of overcoming great anger or pain. If the closing is done with a smile, the meaning is; a gesture of desire to maintain the joy of achievements.

* Eye blinking: The one who blinks their eyes is like someone who stammers, but not with their tongue but with their eyes. Initially, this is an expression of weakness and impatience. The tendency to blink (and they do not have any medical problem with the eyes), is an anxious person or on the verge of despair R"L, and they strive not to expose themselves as weak and vulnerable. They strive not to reveal this weakness more bluntly in other parts of their body and therefore do it through their eyelids.

Frequent blinking indicates feeling pursued by their thoughts, insecure, feeling they cannot fulfill their desires in studies, society, or work, and therefore dispersing excess energy through blinking. This indicates a struggle with pervasive doubt and anxiety for the future.

But it must be remembered that not every quick eyelid movement is blinking as mentioned above.