The Face of a Baby

Two nights ago, Helena Iara wouldn't go back to sleep.  This has become rather common for her, I fear.  She sleeps well through the first half of the night, then wakes and doesn't seem interested in sleeping after her midnight snack.  So that Rita could get a little sleep, I took her out to the hammock, and (yes, the story has become repetitive).

Helena has an immense attention span, especially when she finds colors that she likes (there is a wall downstairs, somewhere between red and brown, that fascinates her) or random movements (light on blowing leaves in the morning).  But what is striking is how long she can stare into one's eyes: with or without focus (there is some debate about this), she can sit and watch and watch and watch as long as I am willing to keep my eyes on hers.

Now, there is an interesting neurology reflection here, given how much of our brains are dedicated to recognizing faces, and it might be worthwhile to suggest that this ability emerges even before a baby is able to focus clearly.  That's not the point of this blog, however.  As we looked into each others eyes in the low light of a single lamp in the middle of the night, I began to think about Emmanuel Levinas.

Like many philosophers influenced by structuralism after the second world war, Levinas was obsessed by the Other, the relationship between the I and the thou.  As a Jew who had just been freed from a concentration camp, he brought an intimate ethical perspective this question, and began to think about a commandment that appears many times in the Torah (though not in the famous 10 Commandments): the requirement that God's people care for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger.  For Levinas, this is the center of Jewish teaching, the responsibility to be open and loving to people who have no social support structure.

Levinas was not, however, by any means naïve.  He had seen too much of the Holocaust for that.  He didn't think that merely talking about this commandment would make people change.  Instead, he began with his own observation: when people have the courage to look each other in the eyes, to recognize the face of the other, they hear a call.  After looking into the eyes of the other honestly and profoundly, I myself am no longer the same: I am called to a relationship to that person, called to justice and kindness (Hesed and Mishpat, the two great Hebrew virtues).

I spend a lot of my time looking into the eyes of the widows, orphans, and strangers of our epoch: street kids, child soldiers, forgotten indigenous people, homeless mothers...  It's my job, but I also like to think that I live up to the Levinasian expectation, and that each one of these encounters leaves me transformed (and, of course, does something for the other, as well).  But to look into the eyes of a baby, of my own daughter... there is something much deeper there.  It isn't about ethics or politics or theology or hesed and mishpat.  All of those words imply love and responsibility, but not to the same degree as is required with this little tiny girl.

Rather intimidating, I have to say I as write this...