When we first moved to Israe lwe went straight to a moshav in the south.

It’s a little hard to put into words exactly what kind of place it was. All I can say is that it had one small freezer for chickens. One aisle for canned goods one shelf for cheeses and a children’s swimming pool filled with live carp.

The first week we were there I put about five frozen chickens into my cart like any American lady doing her weekly shopping. Everyone in the store looked into my cart and gave me sharp looks while I tried to smile. It was a very hard time especially as I’d just left my whole life behind.

The moshav did have a nurse and a doctor but they only came once a week. So if you weren’t feeling well you had a whole week to get better. The nurse had a stash of antibiotics on hand from which she allowed only a seven-day treatment; if you had strep therefore you’d get it again in a week.

This was an old-time moshav. Many of the residents were children of survivors in their late 60s and 70s. They did amazing work with what they had. Established schools. Chicken coops. Vineyards.

The first weeks my husband worked in the chicken coops. Quite a change from being a white-collar lawyer. And chickens aren’t so nice he learned. They actually attack.

So he asked to be moved to the vineyards where he worked with two other men. One of them was about 70. He woke with the sun every day went out to the fields and picked grapes for hours at a time. And what was so unusual about him especially on this particular somber moshav was that he always always had a huge smile on his face.

This smile helped my husband to get out to the fields and enjoy the quiet the camaraderie and the hard honest work.

It’s always much nicer to work when the people around you are pleasant.

There was one other pleasant man we knew on the moshav. The fly man. He rode around on a golf cart–like vehicle spraying insecticides that he himself concocted to keep mosquitoes and flies away.

The truth is I believe his potions actually worked. There wasn’t a fly or mosquito I remember.

This was about as nice as it got.

One day my husband went to visit the man with the broad smile that never left his face’s home to pay a friendly visit.

My husband knocked on the door. When the older man finally opened the door my husband almost fainted when he saw him. He had a sour toothless growling face one my husband had never seen.

My husband said “Excuse me” and quickly exited. What he realized later was that the man must wear false teeth that were too big for his mouth that forced him to smile the whole day. We left the moshav soon after.

I remembered this particular event while reading the parshah in the Me’am Loez this week about Yaakov leaving Lavan’s house. And it said “G-d says to Yaakov ‘Now it is time to leave because I see that Lavan no longer shows you a kind face.’$$$SEPARATE QUOTES$$$”

And I think: This is why it’s time to leave? Not because Lavan lied and gave you the wrong wife and made you shvitz in the heat and freeze in the cold tending his sheep? Not because he made you pay for damages you weren’t responsible for or changed his pay conditions100 times? It’s time to leave because he no longer shows you a kind face?

Wow. This is a very deep point about the effect a person’s face — especially a smile — has.

Someone said something the other day. They said “When G-d wants someone in need to get something one way or the other that was decided on high for them. But what’s not decided on High what’s left for us is how we do that chesed.”

With what face.