Day 12/50: Beauty is Skin-Deep

וַיַּ֣רְא פַּרְעֹ֗ה כִּ֤י הָֽיְתָה֙ הָֽרְוָחָ֔ה וְהַכְבֵּד֙ אֶת־לִבּ֔וֹ

And Pharaoh saw that there was relief and he hardened his heart

The idolization of physical beauty in the non-Jewish world is illustrated in the horrific account of the execution of Rabbi Yishmael the kohen gadol, who was blessed with a strikingly handsome appearance. The daughter of the Roman emperor could not bear to see his beauty go to the grave, so her father agreed on a horrific ”compromise”: Rabbi Yishmael’s skin would be flayed and his face would be preserved for her to gaze upon.

This is highly perplexing. How could she have possibly been satisfied with looking at an empty shell of the man he was?

The emperor and his daughter had a warped and shallow understanding of beauty. They wanted to take Rabbi Yishmael’s physical face and strip it of all of its pnimiyus (inner meaning), leaving it empty and dead. This brought his daughter great happiness because this was her own perverse perception of beauty as well—as something that is purely skin deep. On the other hand, as Yidden, we know that it is the soul of the person that really shines.