When you look at someone else, what do you see? You notice all the character flaws that he himself tries so hard to conceal. When you look at someone else, think that you are looking in a mirror. Just as a mirror reveals to us our unsightly features, so too when we see character flaws in others, we should check for those same traits in ourselves. That's what the saying means: "Who is wise? He who learns from every person (Avos)."

When the kohanim prepared for the service of Hashem in the Mishkan, they washed their hands and feet. On a mystical level, this cleansed them of any spiritual blemish, from any defect, bias or partiality. The laver in which they washed was made entirely of mirrors. This reminded the kohanim that they should check themselves for those character faults that they perceived in others. Because were they only to look at themselves, they would find it very hard to identify their own faults.

In the courtyard of the Tabernacle stood a very large copper laver from which the kohanim washed their hands and feet before performing the service of the Mishkan. It was made exclusively from brightly polished sheets of copper that had been used by the Jewish women as mirrors to adorn themselves.

At first, Moshe was loath to accept the mirrors. Since they had been used to incite desire, he considered them unsuitable for such an elevated purpose. However Hashem instructed him to accept them. These mirrors were more beloved to Hashem than all the other gifts to the Mishkan, for through these mirrors the women of Israel had established multitudes - legions of Jewish souls in Egypt. When their husbands were exhausted from the back-breaking slave-labor, the women would go out to them, bring them food and drink, and feed them.

As they sat there, they would take out their mirrors and each one would look at herself, together with her husband, in the mirror. She would allure him with words, saying "Am I not more beautiful than you?"

This is what the Torah alludes to when it speaks of the "mirrors of the legions."

Yechezkel 36:16-38

One who aspires to purify himself spiritually is given help from above.

The period before Rosh Chodesh Nissan is especially favorable for purification. This is one of the reasons that we read Parshas Parah at this time of the year.

But there is a more basic reason: In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, it was on the 14th of Nissan that the Pesach sacrifice was brought by all the Jewish People.

Parshas Parah deals with the laws of purification that were needed to purify the Jewish People from contact with a dead body - a necessary preliminary to entering the Beis Hamikdash and bringing the Pesach sacrifice.

The Haftorah describes the time of Mashiach, when Hashem will "sprinkle purifying waters on the Bnei Yisrael" and remove from them all the impurities that have encrusted their souls.

"I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh instead." (46:26)

Hashem's mitzvos are our life blood. When we neglect them, our hearts freeze over, severed from their lifeline. We become spiritually rigid. Our hearts atrophy, coarsen and eventually become as rigid as stone.

And because we then have made ourselves a heart of stone, we don't realize that this is why we have so little faith. How can a heart of stone have faith? We don't realize that our complaints against Hashem come from a rock chamber entombed in our chests.

Eventually it will be too late for a "bypass." Hashem will come and give us a heart that is soft, that cries, that wants to hear the word of Hashem and beats in time to its Maker.

Sources:

• We Have The Technology - Beis Halevi
• No Previous Experience Required - Ramban, Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz, Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
• Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall - Toldos Yaakov Yosef
• Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall II - Rashi

LOVE OF THE LAND Selections from classical Torah sources which express the special relationship between the People of Israel and Eretz Yisrael
	GIVING EXPRESSION TO LOVE When Moshe Rabbeinu was refused entry into Eretz Yisrael he complained to Hashem: "The bones of Yosef shall enter the land and I shall not enter?" "He who proudly admitted that this was his land shall be buried in it," replied Hashem, "but he who did not admit that this was his land shall not be buried in it." Yosef did not deny his Hebrew origin when Potifar's wife (Bereishis 39:14) derided him as a "Hebrew brought here to make fun of us." He even went further in describing himself to the chief butler (Bereishis 40:15) as one who "had been stolen from the land of the Hebrews." But when the daughters of Yisro told their father that "an Egyptian man rescued us" (Shemos 2:19), Moshe made no effort to correct this false impression and stress his Hebrew origins. Devarim Rabbah 2:8
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