Vayeshev 5786 - You must leave a pledge... the challenges of facelessness

ByRabbi Anita Josefa Barzman MD Founder, micro-mishkan.net

Where to alight as we study this Torah portion this year, at this moment, as we come to the end of secular year 2025, as we move toward Hanukkah 5786?

We are in a time of discord and polarization, a time when alienation, disrespect, racism, seem to pervade "civil" discourse and local and world events. As the turning of the year continues to move us into longer and darker days, public discourse has become increasingly oversimplified and polarized. Soon days will lengthen; can we find any light of hope in the difficult parts of our Torah this week?

Thus, my question: Where to alight as we study this Torah portion this year, at this moment? What to study; what to learn?

Particularly because Parashat Vayeshev is replete with many problematic elements, ranging from the troubled relationships between / among Joseph and his brothers, among all of them and their father Jacob (favoritism, envy, arrogance, hatred, cruelty); to our ancestors Joseph's brothers plotting to kill him, then deciding instead to sell him into slavery; to sexual politics including manipulation and attempted sexual coercion (Judah and Tamar toward one another, Potiphar's wife towards Joseph).

To our modern eyes, the double standard applied to evidently consensual and extramarital sexual activity is shocking: it acceptable for Judah to engage in sex with a woman he presumes to be a sex-worker [in fact, his daughter-in-law, Tamar] but not acceptable for Tamar to have been sexual with an unknown man. Troubling also is Potiphar's wife's engaging in sexual harassment and manipulation of Joseph.

Favoritism, envy, arrogance, hatred, cruelty, the uses and abuses of power: Parashat Vayeshev: full of troubling elements.

This week, this year, at this moment, I am finding that diving into these problematic elements and digesting their complexities may be a curative for our tendency to oversimplify. Confrontinge moral complexities and wrestling with their presence in Torah can help us cultivate greater capacity for higher level ethical reasoning ourselves.

We humans are all too inclined to generalize, all too susceptible to a binary view; when our leaders and our mass media perpetuate such approaches, it is more urgent than ever that each of us sharpen our skills that allow us to thoughtfully explore moral problems and come to our own conclusions. Torah study is a powerful tool in this undertaking.

This year I am moved to explore one word in our parsha, from the episode of Tamar and Judah (Genesis Chapter 38), and to look at its ramifications in broad terms of social justice, alienation and disrespect, and genuinely "seeing" the other.

The word for our exploration is "pledge" - עֵרָב֖וֹן (eravon); it has to do with an intermixing between the parties between whom the pledge occurs; we will see that such intermixing changes both parties. And here, in Parashat Vayeshev we will see that this pledge is given in the context of concealment / facelessness.

I will not bring answers here; rather, I will bring questions, for myself, and for you, to ponder and wrestle with.

In Parashat Vayeshev), Tamar, Judah's daughter-in-law, has disguised herself as a sex-worker ("harlot", prostitute) and sits by the side of the road in a location where she knows Judah will pass by. We understand that she has done so in order to obtain the fulfillment of having children by Judah's line, predicting that Judah will experience desire for her, and that she will become pregnant by him. No pregnancies had resulted from Tamar's marriage to Judah's eldest now-deceased eldest son, Er, nor with the attempted Levirate marriage with Onan, Judah's second son, who declined to fulfill the obligations of levirate marriage with Tamar. Further, Tamar comes to understand that it is unlikely she will have children with Judah's youngest son, Shelah, whom Judah is effectively withholding from her. Further, Judah has taken steps to place Tamar in the untenable situation of being a widow who seemingly is waiting for a Levirate marriage that will never come; on this path, she will not have children.

So Tamar acts with agency and strategically waits for Judah.

בראשית ל״ח:י״ד-ט״ו

(יד) וַתָּ֩סַר֩ בִּגְדֵ֨י אַלְמְנוּתָ֜הּ מֵֽעָלֶ֗יהָ וַתְּכַ֤ס בַּצָּעִיף֙ וַתִּתְעַלָּ֔ף וַתֵּ֙שֶׁב֙ בְּפֶ֣תַח עֵינַ֔יִם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־דֶּ֣רֶךְ תִּמְנָ֑תָה כִּ֤י רָאֲתָה֙ כִּֽי־גָדַ֣ל שֵׁלָ֔ה וְהִ֕וא לֹֽא־נִתְּנָ֥ה ל֖וֹ לְאִשָּֽׁה׃ (טו)וַיִּרְאֶ֣הָ יְהוּדָ֔ה וַֽיַּחְשְׁבֶ֖הָ לְזוֹנָ֑ה כִּ֥י כִסְּתָ֖ה פָּנֶֽיהָ׃

Genesis 38:14-15

(14) So she took off her widow’s garb, covered her face with a veil, and, wrapping herself up, sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him as wife. (15)When Judah saw her, he took her for a harlot; for she had covered her face.

Tamar has covered her face; most certainly in this moment, Judah can not possibly "see" Tamar, recognize her. For Judah in this moment, Tamar is a faceless woman whose body is available for his pleasure. This turn of the narrative feels problematic; he does not "see" her; she seems to be "using" him. Are these actions exemplary of how we wish to be in relationships?

When Judah approaches Tamar and begins negotiating with her for sex, she sets out conditions for him:

בראשית ל״ח:ט״ז-י״ז

(טז) וַיֵּ֨ט אֵלֶ֜יהָ אֶל־הַדֶּ֗רֶךְ וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הָֽבָה־נָּא֙ אָב֣וֹא אֵלַ֔יִךְ כִּ֚י לֹ֣א יָדַ֔ע כִּ֥י כַלָּת֖וֹ הִ֑וא וַתֹּ֙אמֶר֙ מַה־תִּתֶּן־לִ֔י כִּ֥י תָב֖וֹא אֵלָֽי׃ (יז) וַיֹּ֕אמֶר אָנֹכִ֛י אֲשַׁלַּ֥ח גְּדִֽי־עִזִּ֖ים מִן־הַצֹּ֑אן וַתֹּ֕אמֶר אִם־תִּתֵּ֥ן עֵרָב֖וֹן עַ֥ד שׇׁלְחֶֽךָ׃

Genesis 38:16-17

(16) So he turned aside to her by the road and said, “Here, let me sleep with you”—for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. “What,” she asked, “will you pay for sleeping with me?” (17) He replied, “I will send a kid from my flock.” But she said, “You must leave a pledge until you have sent it.”

Judah offers her payment for sex - a goat - but Tamar's plan includes extracting something from Judah that is closer to home: her strategy is to be able ultimately to reveal Judah's identity.

"You must leave a pledge" says Tamar to Judah: עֵרָב֖וֹן ... a curious, and rare, word in Tanakh (appearing only three times in the entire Tanakh, all of them in this chapter).
עֵרָב֖וֹן (eravon):

The verbal root of עֵרָב֖וֹן is √ערב, which is about "mixing" (similar to the word for evening, עֶרֶב) - to mix, to weave, to give in pledge, to become surety for one another:

A pledge is different from a gift, which I would give to you, and then you would have possession of the gifted item; certainly, gift-giving establishes a connection between the giver and the receiver, and gifts do include a transactional element; but with gift-giving, there is no expectation that part of the process is that the gift will be returned to the giver.

On the contrary, with a pledge, the idea is that the item will be returned to the giver at some point. Thus, there is an on-going connection which includes the promise of a future action that established between the parties. With this in mind, I am interested here in exploring this: When we make or leave a pledge - עֵרָב֖וֹן ... when we promise something to someone... somehow, we become mixed in, mixed-up, entangling ourselves, with the recipient of the pledge, in a different way than when we give a gift.

When Tamar, veiled and unrecognized, requests a pledge from Judah, she is inviting him into a connection with her in which there will be an unknowable (unperceivable?) element of mixing up.

In the matter of giving a pledge, I suggest that we are changed, and we experience an expanded sense of mutual obligation. This result may be constituted - as in our parsha - of both positive and problematic elements.

In the eclectic field of contemporary psychoanalysis (of which I am a practitioner [in the tradition of eclectic Jungian analysis]), the phenomenon of "mixing up" with an Other [not to be confused with being confused or misspeaking] is a fascinating and fundamental one explored by analysts ranging from Jung to Lacan to Bollas.

For example, Jacques Lacan, the post-modern French philosopher and analyst, suggests in his 1966 paper, "Of Structure as the Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever", that a subject (for example, myself) cannot exist without being intertwined with this "Other" element.

"The message, our message, in all cases comes from the Other by which I understand "from the place of the Other." It certainly is not the common other, the other with a lower-case o, and this is why I have given a capital O as the initial letter to the Other of whom I am now speaking.... Where is the subject? It is necessary to find the subject as a lost object. More precisely this lost object is the support of the subject and in many cases is a more abject thing than you may care to consider...
" The languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man: The Structuralist Controversy, ed. R. Macksey and E. Donato, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970. https://www.lacan.com/hotel.htm

Emmanuel Levinas, the French Jewish philosopher and teacher (1906-1995) explored throughout the corpus of his work that it is the face of the Other that is the basic of all ethics and all action. In Levinasian ethics, my obligations to you arise from my perceiving you in yourself. Levinas' corpus of work constitute a profound contribution to the development of ethics in the 20th Century, and it is clear that his emphasis that his interest in discerning the humanity in the "other" arose from his experiences and observation of events of the the 20th Century, including the Shoah.

However, studying Levinas brings us to a problematic fact, analogous to problems woven into Torah (so robustly represented in this week's Parsha): heroes are fallible; prophets are all too human; reality contains cracks, faults. It turns out that Levinas was not only a misogynist, but was such an ardent Zionist that at times, he was not able to see the face of "the enemy" (Palestinians), positing them as enemies and not as neighbors. Thus, he seems to have failed to apply his own ethics consistently to circumstances in life.

[If readers are interested in further exploring these problematic elements of Levinas' output, here are some references:
Hatley, James, Nameless Memory: Levinas, Witness and Politics in Justice and the Politics of Memory: Religion & Public Life: 33 (Religion and Public Life) (2003)
Caro, Jason, Levinas and the Palestinians. PHILOSOPHY & SOCIAL CRITICISM • vol 35 no 6 • pp. 671–684 (2009)

Bearing in mind the interconnected mixing up of a pledge, let us turn back to our parsha:

בראשית ל״ח:י״ח-י״ט

(יח) וַיֹּ֗אמֶר מָ֣ה הָעֵֽרָבוֹן֮ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶתֶּן־לָךְ֒ וַתֹּ֗אמֶר חֹתָֽמְךָ֙ וּפְתִילֶ֔ךָ וּמַטְּךָ֖ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּיָדֶ֑ךָ וַיִּתֶּן־לָ֛הּ וַיָּבֹ֥א אֵלֶ֖יהָ וַתַּ֥הַר לֽוֹ׃ (יט) וַתָּ֣קׇם וַתֵּ֔לֶךְ וַתָּ֥סַר צְעִיפָ֖הּ מֵעָלֶ֑יהָ וַתִּלְבַּ֖שׁ בִּגְדֵ֥י אַלְמְנוּתָֽהּ׃

Genesis 38:18-19

(18) And he [Judah] said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your seal and cord, and the staff which you carry.” So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she conceived by him. (19) Then she went on her way. She took off her veil and again put on her widow’s garb.

Have you ever wondered why - as this "pledge" - Tamar requests Judah's cord, seal, and staff? What do these items connote, represent?

"The Symbols Combined:
The signet, cord, and staff represent the emblems of the individual’s personal status—much like an ancient identity card. The fact that Judah possessed a signet, dressed in a garment decorated with tassels or wore his signet with a cord as jewelry, and had a staff in hand attests to his high status and importance as a leader. The Book of Genesis would later attest to this primogeniture and sovereignty over the tribes of Israel: “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies … Judah is a lion’s whelp” (Genesis 49:8-9)." (emphasis added)
https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/department/the-signs-that-bind/

רש"י על בראשית ל״ח:י״ח:א׳

חתמך ופתילך. עִזְקְתָךְ וְשׁוֹשִׁיפָּךְ – טַבַּעַת שֶׁאַתָה חוֹתֵם בָּהּ וְשִׂמְלָתְךָ שֶׁאַתָּה מִתְכַּסֶּה בָהּ:

Rashi on Genesis 38:18:1

חתמך ופתילך THY SIGNET AND THY STRING — The Targum renders it by “Thy signet and thy cloak” — the ring which you use as a seal and the cloak with which you cover yourself

So we can understand that, by requesting these particular objects as a pledge from Judah, Tamar is, in essence, requiring that he leave his "identity card" with her, very personal elements that not only connote who he is, but also are items that signify his power and status. As the narrative continues, Judah - upon learning that Tamar is pregnant - at first demands that she be burned to death; but Tamar is able to demonstrate that he is the father via her having his "pledge" in her possession:

בראשית ל״ח:כ״ד-כ״ה

(כד) וַיְהִ֣י ׀ כְּמִשְׁלֹ֣שׁ חֳדָשִׁ֗ים וַיֻּגַּ֨ד לִֽיהוּדָ֤ה לֵאמֹר֙ זָֽנְתָה֙ תָּמָ֣ר כַּלָּתֶ֔ךָ וְגַ֛ם הִנֵּ֥ה הָרָ֖ה לִזְנוּנִ֑ים וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהוּדָ֔ה הוֹצִיא֖וּהָ וְתִשָּׂרֵֽף׃ (כה) הִ֣וא מוּצֵ֗את וְהִ֨יא שָׁלְחָ֤ה אֶל־חָמִ֙יהָ֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר לְאִישׁ֙ אֲשֶׁר־אֵ֣לֶּה לּ֔וֹ אָנֹכִ֖י הָרָ֑ה וַתֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הַכֶּר־נָ֔א לְמִ֞י הַחֹתֶ֧מֶת וְהַפְּתִילִ֛ים וְהַמַּטֶּ֖ה הָאֵֽלֶּה׃

Genesis 38:24-25

(24) About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot; in fact, she is pregnant from harlotry.” “Bring her out,” said Judah. “She should be burned!” (25) As she was being brought out, she sent this message to her father-in-law, “It’s by the man to whom these belong that I’m pregnant.” And she added, “Examine these: whose seal and cord and staff are these?”

At this climactic moment, there is an opportunity for Judah to change, for his ethics to expand; in many commentators' view, it affects a moral development in Judah. First, we will see that Judah perceives a quality of righteousness, tzedekah, in Tamar:

בראשית ל״ח:כ״ו

(כו) וַיַּכֵּ֣ר יְהוּדָ֗ה וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ צָֽדְקָ֣ה מִמֶּ֔נִּי כִּֽי־עַל־כֵּ֥ן לֹא־נְתַתִּ֖יהָ לְשֵׁלָ֣ה בְנִ֑י וְלֹֽא־יָסַ֥ף ע֖וֹד לְדַעְתָּֽהּ׃

Genesis 38:26

(26) Judah recognized them, and said, “She is more in the right / righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he was not intimate with her again.

חזקוני, בראשית ל״ח:כ״ו:א׳

(א)צדקה ממני מהו ממני אלא ה״‎ק אשר עשתה להזקק לי להקים למת זרע ממני. ולא משילה כי יראה פן ישחית זרעו כאחיו וימות.

Chizkuni, Genesis 38:26:1

(1) צדקה ממני, “she is more righteous than I;” why did Yehudah add the word: ממני? She did what she did because she wanted to become pregnant from him since she was afraid that Shilo also would spill his seed like his brothers had done and he would die. [The meaning is as follows: whereas both she and I indulged our libido, I did it for a merely physical gratification, whereas she was intent on becoming the mother of a member of the family of Avraham, Yitzchok and a Yaakov. I considered her as a potentially bad omen, two of her husbands having died on her, whereas her entire purpose was to bring life into the world. Ed.]

Judah's further moral development will be seen in next week's parsha, Parashat Miketz, when Judah effectively redeems his prior actions (taking part in the mistreatment of his brother Joseph, the entire episode with Tamar) when he offers himself as a pledge for his younger brother Benjamin (in one of the narrative twists in the "story of Joseph" - and thus in the healing of the harm done to Joseph by his brothers, including Judah). Here, Judah is addressing Jacob:

בראשית מ״ג:ט׳

(ט) אָֽנֹכִי֙ אֶֽעֶרְבֶ֔נּוּ מִיָּדִ֖י תְּבַקְשֶׁ֑נּוּ אִם־לֹ֨א הֲבִיאֹתִ֤יו אֵלֶ֙יךָ֙ וְהִצַּגְתִּ֣יו לְפָנֶ֔יךָ וְחָטָ֥אתִֽי לְךָ֖ כׇּל־הַיָּמִֽים׃

Genesis 43:9

(9) I myself will be a pledge for him; you may hold me responsible: if I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, I shall stand guilty before you forever.

שמירת הלשון, חלק שני י״ב:ה׳

(ה)וְהִנֵּה יְהוּדָה אָמַר (בראשית מ"ג ט'): "אִם לֹא הֲבִיאֹתִיו אֵלֶיךָ וְהִצַּגְתִּיו לְפָנֶיךָ וְחָטָאתִי לְךָ כָּל הַיָּמִים", שֶׁשִּׁעְבֵּד עַצְמוֹ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וּבָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, וְעַל יְדֵי זֶה נִסְבַּב לוֹ צַעַר גָּדוֹל מְאֹד יוֹתֵר מִכָּל הָאַחִים, כַּאֲשֶׁר כָּתוּב בְּפָרָשַׁת וַיִּגַּשׁ. וְסִבַּת הַדָּבָר, כִּי הוּא סִבֵּב הַדָּבָר לְמָכְרוֹ לְעֶבֶד. וּבֶאֱמֶת הוּא הָיָה הֶחָשׁוּב שֶׁבָּאַחִים, וְהָיָה לוֹ לְהִתְחַזֵּק לְהָשִׁיבוֹ אֶל אָבִיו, וְעַל כֵּן נֶעֱנַשׁ מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם, שֶׁשִּׁעְבֵּד עַצְמוֹ בְּעַרְבוּת נוֹרָאָה עַל אָח אַחֵר לְהָבִיאוֹ אֶל אָבִיו, וּבָזֶה יִתְחַזֵּקּ בְּכָל כֹּחוֹ וְגַם יִתְרַצֶּה בְּעַצְמוֹ וְיִשְׁתַּטַּח לִפְנֵי אֲדוֹן הָאָרֶץ שֶׁיִּקָּחֶנּוּ לְעֶבֶד, כְּדֵי שֶׁהָאָח יֵלֵךְ לְבֵיתוֹ לְאָבִיו. וְגַם כָּל יֶתֶר הָאַחִים שֶׁנִּתְרַצּוּ בַּמְּכִירָה, נִסְבְּבָה לָהֶם דְּאָגָה רַבָּה, אֲשֶׁר נִתְרַצּוּ עַל יְדֵי זֶה כֻּלָּם לִהְיוֹת עֲבָדִים, כַּכָּתוּב שֶׁאָמְרוּ (בראשית מ"ד ט'): "וְגַם אֲנַחְנוּ נִהְיֶה לַאֲדֹנִי לַעֲבָדִים"; וְגַם בְּסוֹף פָּרָשַׁת וַיְחִי (בראשית נ' י"ח): "וְיֵלְכוּ גַּם אֶחָיו וַיִּפְּלוּ לְפָנָיו וַיֹּאמְרוּ: הִנֶּנּוּ לְךָ לַעֲבָדִים".

Shemirat HaLashon, Book II 12:5

(5) And Judah said (Ibid. 43:9): "If I do not bring him [Benjamin] to you and present him to you [alive], I shall have sinned against you all the days," Judah going surety both in this world and the next, and through this, experiencing great suffering, more than all of the other brothers, as written in Parshath Vayigash. The reason for this is that he caused Joseph's being sold as a slave. In truth, Judah was the most eminent of the brothers, and he should have strengthened himself to return Joseph to his father, wherefore he was punished by Heaven by having to go surety for a different brother [Benjamin], to bring him to his father. And in this, he strengthened himself with all his power, and he also acquiesced in prostrating himself before the lord of the land to be taken as a slave, so that his brother could return home to his father. And all the other brothers who acquiesced in the sale were made to undergo great sorrow by acquiescing in becoming slaves themselves, as it is written (Ibid. 44:9): "And we, too, shall be slaves to my lord." And also (Ibid. 50:18): "And his brothers also went, and they fell before him [Joseph] and they said: 'Behold, we are your slaves.'"

There is robust commentary about Tamar and her actions; although this is outside of the scope of this particular commentary, I encourage readers to explore, in particular: an article by noted feminist scholar Tikva Frymer-Kinsky, that explores Tamar's agency and assertion of power:
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/tamar-bible

also:
Amit, Yairah, 'Tamar, from Victim to Mother of a Dynasty', in Diana V. Edelman, and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds), Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination (Oxford, 2013; online edn, Oxford Academic, 26 Sept. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199664160.003.0016

Tamar’s move was calculated. Using authoritative objects that express the identity of the one possessing them, she asks Judah for a tangible guarantee that requires him to fulfill his promise and oath to act righteously to her. Unbeknownst to Judah, Tamar was seeking a fulfillment of Judah’s original oath to redeem her, not just his promise to pay her a goat. In her actions, she hints at the future—even in the face of death—a guarantee that her son will be the one chosen to continue the Judean dynasty in the future, as she produces the objects at last and reveals the identity of the man who impregnated her.

As problematic as we may find the encounter between Judah and Tamar in this week's parsha, the fact is that the eventual progeny of Tamar and Judah's sexual encounter results ino the line of David (through one of Tamar's twins, Peretz). Our exalted Jewish ancestry (as well as the ancestry of Jesus, in Christian thought [in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke]) arises from this entangled encounter between Judah and his daughter-in-law, Tamar. The pledge, the mixing up / intermixing, results in a complexity that, try as we might, cannot be seen as entirely good or entirely bad.

How do we hold tension of understanding that the lineage of King David arises out of this problematic encounter? Of course, David did not lead a blameless life himself. I suggest that we can learn about reconciliation and the cultivation of harmony and justice from clearly seeing the problematic dimensions of these important elements in the Jewish "origin story".

When we engage with another, but do not see the complexity of who they are - when we do not see their "face", we are "othering" them, disregarding their true humanity. I suggest that we do so at our own peril. When I regard you as faceless or invisible, I not only harm and diminish you; I harm and diminish myself.

Much of contemporary discourse is based in regarding others as faceless. I suggest that it is vital for us to recognize this tendency in ourselves, to accept complexities. May we have the ethical fortitude and enough capacity for inquiry that we can wrestle productively with seeming contradictions, and fruitfully consider that problematic elements can be contained and transmuted.

As we undertake this challenging task, may we remember the stirring moment from last week's, in Parashat Vayishlach, when Jacob and Esau finally reunite, after decades of enmity, distrust, and alienation, and Jacob says to his brother:

בראשית ל״ג:י׳

(י) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יַעֲקֹ֗ב אַל־נָא֙ אִם־נָ֨א מָצָ֤אתִי חֵן֙ בְּעֵינֶ֔יךָ וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ מִנְחָתִ֖י מִיָּדִ֑י כִּ֣י עַל־כֵּ֞ן רָאִ֣יתִי פָנֶ֗יךָ כִּרְאֹ֛ת פְּנֵ֥י אֱלֹהִ֖ים וַתִּרְצֵֽנִי׃

Genesis 33:10

(10) But Jacob said, “No, I pray you; if you would do me this favor, accept from me this gift; for to see your face is like seeing the face of God, and you have received me favorably/ you have been pleased with me.

This last word - וַתִּרְצֵֽנִי - from the verbal root √רצה - usually translated as "you have received me favorably" or "you have been pleased with me" - includes in its semantic cloud the paying off of a debt, as well as reconciliation.

When we truly "see" the Other, and it as if we are seeing the face of God, we move into a domain where debts are repaired, pledges are made good, reconciliation is possible.