Uncovering Our Mirrors

Uncovering Our Mirrors
Shavuot Yizkor 5785
Rabbi Andrew Kaplan Mandel

After President Abraham Lincoln died,
his coffin sat in the East Room of the White House,
where the mirrors were completely covered in fabric.
There’s a long-standing belief in many cultures
that evil spirits lurk in reflective surfaces,
eager to escape into the embodied world.
The house of mourning is a potential portal
because it straddles life and death,
and people draped mirrors in cloth to plug up that passageway.

But for Jews, this tradition has additional
—less supernatural—meanings.
During Shiva, the first seven days of mourning, we turn inward.
It’s not a time for vanity, for checking how we look.
We ought not prettify ourselves
to cover up our grief, to dress up our exhaustion.
People should see us as we are.

There’s also a theological idea here.
if every person is made in the Divine image,
when a person dies, we’re marking that
the Divine image has been overturned.
In Judaism, we also speak of hester panim,
the times when G-d has hidden G-d’s face.
When we lose a loved one, we may feel that distance from G-d;
in our grief, it might feel as though G-d has withdrawn temporarily.
Turning over our mirrors might signal that absence.

In the first phase of grief,
we are not necessarily prepared to face ourselves.
Some of us have suffered terrible losses:
people whose presence shaped our milestones,
Whose absence can make us fear our future without them.
Parents, lovers, children, soul-friends.
There’s a gentleness in a tradition
that shields us from taking that all in at first.
Then, time passes, and the mirror covering comes off.
We don’t return to normal—we can’t.
But Judaism has us return to seeing ourselves.
I’ve come to wonder if we mask the mirror
so that we can have the sacred experience of unmasking it again.

What happens when we look into that glass after losing a loved one?
How can we make the most of coming face to face with ourselves?

First, we might perceive those who have departed looking back at us.
Maybe we shared physical features with them
– the shape of a smile, the color of an eye,
– so that we see similarities when we look in the mirror.
We’re told that our patriarchs Abraham and Isaac resembled each other,
Apparently so that no one could doubt that
Abraham – despite his age – was Isaac’s father.
But it’s not necessarily about DNA.
Many events in Isaac’s life were echoes of his father’s:
they both faced famine,
both feared kings,
both dug the same wells.
Maybe, just maybe, when Isaac looked into the water,
he saw more than his reflection—
he saw his father’s presence and strength.
Maybe he saw how their lives were linked together,
Recognizing the connection and continuity that his very being represented?
Our faces, too, can be maps of lineage and love.
Looking in the mirror and seeing the one you miss
symbolizes that that person is not in fact gone because you live.
You bring them with you everywhere you go.

In addition to visiting with the past,
looking in the mirror gives us a chance
to see our new selves, where we are in life at this time, in this new moment.
When someone important to us dies, it can be the end of an era for us.
Without that parent, that partner, that light in our life,
this may be the start of something new and scary.
Our roles in life, our status in our family or community, may have changed.
We are different.
And we can ask: Who do we want to be?
As we live our lives in the months ahead,
looking into the mirror can serve as a spiritual check-in:
a place to see where we’re headed and who we’re becoming.
Are we living a life worthy of the legacy they’ve left behind?
Would they see us pursuing a path worthy of our potential?
Does the person we see in the mirror need to make a change?

And finally, there is the simplest aspect of looking in the mirror.
Everyone’s timeline is different –
but at some point in our process of mourning,
we have to look at our physical selves:
How am I really doing? Have I been taking care of myself?
And what would my loved one say about that?
I imagine most of them would lovingly—but firmly—say:
“I’m gone, but you’re not. Don’t disappear with me.”
Sometimes we need the mirror to remind us to brush our hair—if we still have any.
To drink water. To go outside.
To pursue an existence that shouts “L’Chaim”—to life—
because that is the legacy we inherit:
a life worth living.
We too are the image of G-d.
It would be a sacrilege to let that languish.
When the Israelites were wandering in the desert,
they followed a Divine cloud.
When the cloud would descend, they stayed still, just like we do in grief.
And when it lifted, they knew it was time to move forward.
The mirror covering is our cloud.
And when we uncover it, we aren’t forgetting—we’re following.
Following the light of those we love, into a future they helped shape.

Right after a death, there’s something useful
about the productivity:
all of the tasks you need to complete
to make arrangements and announcements.
It keeps you busy at a time when
you might otherwise just shut down,
when the loss is fresh and acute.
But then the world grows quiet.
It’s just you.
And the mirror.
And the question:
How will I live now, in a way that honors them and sustains me?
Looking in the mirror can be the ongoing ritual you can use
to check in, be grateful, and
prepare to live once more.