Whenever Leah asked her friend Yochi about Yochi’s newly married couple there’d be this big silence and a change of subject.

That’s before Leah had a married couple herself and had learned people shouldn’t ask anything about anything.

Not a nonchalant “How’s Yitzy” or an innocent “Did the young couple come for Yom Tov?”

But sometimes she’d get caught up in a rough spot like if you don’t ask it’s as if you don’t care or remember.

She’d pretty much learned her lesson about what to ask and what not to ask 20 years earlier when they  invited a lonely painter for a Shabbos meal one week.

They thought they were just being friendly and interested but after a few questions like “Where are you from?” and “How long have you done this work?” the painter turned to them and with a fiery tone said “Did you invite me here to be your Shabbos guest or Shabbos entertainment?”

That was a deep-branded lesson they never forget.

So since she stopped asking anything in particular about anyone or thing she and Yochi just talked kind of about the weather of the world.

How tides have changed. The general apathetic atmosphere. How they’re not able to feel so much the way they used to. And who’d ever imagine things would turn out like this? All around things like that.

Then Yochi says “Let me ask you a question.

“Yesterday it was my daughter-in-law’s birthday so they called in the late morning and kind of invited themselves over which I was okay about and I threw together a last second cake no icing but it was a cake and a meal. So my daughter-in-law walks in says ‘Hello ’ I think and sits on the couch. I’m in the kitchen and we don’t say a word and I’m wondering all the while What did I do wrong?”

Now Leah has known Yochi since the first grade and she can’t remember anyone not getting along with Yochi.

And Yochi even says it about herself “I’ve never not gotten along with someone. When I asked around about my daughter-in-law before the marriage I heard she’s an amazingly friendly girl. So what am I doing wrong?” she asks Leah again. “It all makes me feel so ugly.”

“I know” Leah says “It’s the hardest thing to keep trying to love someone who’s not exactly showing their best side when you see them.”

“But it seems as if it’s me” Yochi answers.

Leah says “In Mitzrayim men did women’s work and women did men’s. No one was looking too pretty there steeped in grimy galus overworked and beaten. But there was something the women did. They took out their mirrors and looked at themselves and made themselves beautiful.

“We have to feel beautiful when we look at ourselves not just physically but in our actions. Then we have the strength to serve G-d the way we really want to. If you feel good about yourself and you’re acting and being the most beautiful you can be the people around you even if they’re down and dark will see your light. Mirrors reflect light. A friend once said to me ‘Stay in the light don’t go down into the darkness of others.’

“Sorry about the long-winded speech.” Leah apologizes. “But anyway your daughter-in-law will feel it and even if she doesn’t you will know you acted beautifully.”

It’s not for nothing the basin in the Mishkan used by the Kohanim to wash their hands and feet every day before serving G-d was made of those same mirrors.