Facing the Right Direction | Rabbi Shlomo Farhi

I've got to share this with you. The pasuk says by Noach, Shem and Yefet took the blanket, they placed it on their shoulders and they walked backwards. They covered over their father, who was not dressed, and their faces were backwards and their father’s undressed state they did not see. You gotta hear this piece from the Alshech. It's unbelievable. He asks, first of all, Let's review, they’re walking backwards with the blanket on their shoulder. Obviously, they can't see their father. Why does the pasuk tell you that they didn't see their father in his state of being undressed? Second question, Why does it then tell us, and their faces were backwards? If you're walking backwards, your face is backwards. Why do you need to tell me that? Listen to what the Alshech suggests. He says as follows. There was a point in time when they were walking backwards, when they had to turn around to be able to cover over their father. They wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t look. Says the Alshech, But why didn’t they just close their eyes? He says that looking at something doesn't only happen with your eyes. It also happens with your face. And therefore, closing their eyes was not enough. So even when they turned this way, towards their father, they turned their face in the complete opposite direction. So their faces לא ראו, never saw, not just their eyes. The Alshech explains that each person has the צלם אלוקים, an image of God that is placed upon them to make them holy. That is their Kedushah. And where does the צלם אלוקים reside? Here, on their face, indicating that Shmirat HaEinayim is not only about your eyes, it's about your whole face. If your face saw something, then you saw something, even if your eyes didn’t. My friends, maybe that's why the Gemara tells us that if a person goes to a place where there's something inappropriate and he does not look, but he didn't need to go that way, still, he's called a רשע. Most people interpret that Gemara and they say that it means because why did you put yourself in a state of Nisayon? But according to the Alshech, we have another explanation. You didn't need to be there, even if you closed your eyes, your face still saw it. Maybe we need to stop focusing only on Shmirat HaEinayim, not having my eyes be where they shouldn't, and we could think a little bit more about not having ourselves be where we shouldn’t. And then you'll be blessed with the blessing of Shem and Yefet, the Bracha that Noach gives his children for that sensitivity. We all need Bracha. Sometimes it's about being in the right place, not just in the right time.