A Note to My Congregation - LAST SHABBAT WE WERE ALL SMILES! – So What’s JEWISH about SMILES?

There were smiles abounding last Shabbat!  It was apparent from the energy in the room that some amazing dynamic was going on.  Granted, we don’t usually get a chance to smile much on Rosh Hashanna or Yom Kippur, the two days when most Jews are likely to show up for services, but last Friday’s Shabbat Dinner and Service was a “Smile Fest!” I’ve gotten e-mails and phone calls to tell me how “happy” the evening was!

I think we can credit the phenomenon to the infectious nature of smiles.  The most “contagious” of these was that of the head of our “SUNSHINE COMMITTEE”, Nancy Lagasse, who literally SHONE as she and her service dog ARKIN greeted each arriving person.  We had so many new people last week! Our “regular” congregants went out of their way to make them feel welcome and in short order we had fifty-five very happy folk smiling, eating, talking, singing and praying. (They were even happy as they cleaned up!)

Judaism has something to say about EVERYTHING, so why not SMILING? In the Mishnah (Pirkei Avot – the Ethics of the Fathers 1:15) We are guided by the great teacher, Shammai, to “Receive everyone with a cheerful face!” Elsewhere, in Pirket Avot (4:20) we are instructed, “Always be the first one to greet every person.”  “Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai said, “Never did I meet anyone in the street who greeted me before I greeted them.” Rav Dessler admonished a pupil, who was walking around wearing a long face, saying: “You are like a thief! You are depriving your fellow human beings of the pleasantness of a cheerful face!”

To smile is innately human.  There is evidence that babies smile in the womb.  We know that smiling at an infant almost always elicits a smile from the infant.

So, what’s in a smile that makes us feel so good?   Biologically, we know that smiling is good for us.  Smiling releases neuropeptides, tiny molecules that allow neurons to communicate.  They facilitate sending messages to the whole body when we are happy, sad, angry, depressed, or excited. The “feel good” neurotransmitters dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are all released when a smile flashes across your face. A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia reported that seeing an attractive smiling face activates your orbitofrontal cortex, the region in your brain that process sensory rewards. This suggests that when you view a person smiling, you actually feel rewarded.
It is apparent that the Rabbis were on to something long before the biologists and the psychologists got in on the action.
Have you ever wondered about UNSMILING people?  In an interview in WIRED.com, Marianne La France, an experimental psychologist at Yale, who has written a book on the subject of smiling,  Lip Service: Smiles in Life, Death, Trust, Lies, Work, Memory, Sex and Politics, was asked: “What is it about unsmiling people that is unnerving?”
Her response? “People convey by their faces that they acknowledge us, that we’re alive, that we matter, that we are not just objects to be dispensed with.”
And that, I believe, is what the rabbis were trying to get at. Smiling is a gift, a God given gift.  A gift meant to be given away, not hoarded. I know, first hand, what a day can be like without giving away a smile.  Twenty years ago, I developed Bell’s Palsy, a paralysis of the facial muscles.  I couldn’t smile for months. The inability to smile was so disconcerting that, when the Palsy finally dissipated, I made a promise to myself to make it a point to do what the rabbis had suggested, “to greet everyone with a smiling face.”
I’m not sure what the rabbis would have said if they could have looked into the future, a world in which a graphic symbol called an “emoticon” would take the place of human smiles and laughter.  That is why we, in order to retain our humanity, need to take every opportunity for face-to-face interaction. Our lives are rich in “communication devices, yet miserly in face-to-face communication.
God willing, as the congregation expands, so will your circles of friends, acquaintances, people of similar interests, those you need to care about. Relationships build congregations. When we meet again, at Sunday School, at services, at Book Club, or Adult Ed, in the temple kitchen, at the supermarket, or volunteering in the community, I hope there will be a smile on your face; the gift that keeps on giving.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rose