Circle of Light

Last week, while learning, I came across the following passage:

Likutey Moharan I, 19
Everyone can see his own face in the face of the tzaddik as he could in a mirror. As a result, even without rebuke and without reproof, he will feel remorse for his deeds just by having looked into the tzaddik’s face. This is because by looking into his face, a person will see himself as if in a mirror and realizing how he is immersed in darkness, will feel remorse.

Now I was familiar with the tzaddik being able to look at a person’s face, and thereby know the person’s history and what was needed to rectify his soul, and with this the idea that a person might hide his face from the tzaddik because he did not want the tzaddik to view the darkness within him. But, the concept that the person could view his own darkness reflected in the face of the tzaddik was difficult to understand. The next day this was presented to me:

Schottenstein edition, Talmud Yerushalmi, Berachos 84B, elucidation:
A human being gains awareness of the world around him only through the light that reaches his eyes from the outside; thus his knowledge is inherently limited to the present and the visible. G-d, however, has no need of external light, for “the (essence of) light i.e. absolute knowledge resides with Him.”

This seemed to touch on the previous passage. The elucidation is referring to the hiding away of the light from the first day of creation, to be used by the righteous in the world to come. It tells that a person’s vision, when dependent upon worldly light, is limited to the objects of this world, while Hashem “sees” with the light of Daat. It didn’t help me with the idea of the tzaddik as a mirror though.
Later that day, I read the following:

I Samuel 16:7
But Hashem said to Samuel “Do not look to his appearance or his stature, for I have rejected him. For it is not as man sees; man sees only what his eyes behold, but Hashem sees into the heart.”

Once again the idea that worldly vision is imperfect, judgmental, and superficial, while Hashem’s “vision” reveals the inner truth of a person.
The next day’s learning brought me this:

Bahir 187, trans. Aryeh Kaplan
It is thus written, “I will grant him a spirit of the fear of G-d, and he will not judge by the sight of his eyes, he will not admonish according to what his ear hears.” He will incline all the world to the pan of merit. From there counsel emanates, and from there health emanates to the world. It is also written “From there is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel.” This is the place that is called “There.” Regarding this it is written, “(He has rays from His Hand, and His hidden Force is there.”

Bahir 148
…What is “His hidden Force”? This is the light that was stored away and hidden,

Here was the key to my understanding of the original passage. In order to see what is hidden within, a person must have fear of G-d. With fear of G-d a person can merit the hidden light. This recalled an earlier lesson in Likutey Moharan:

Likutey Moharan I, 15
Anyone who wants to experience a taste of the Or HaGanuz (Hidden Light) – i.e., the mysteries of the Torah that will be revealed in the Future – must elevate the aspect of fear to its source. And with what is fear elevated? With the aspect of judgment.

The Torah tells us that when Moshe descended from Har Sinai his faced glowed. The Zohar explains that Moshe attained the level of Tiferet, which is known as, the mirror that shines, his face shone with the Divine Light.
The tzaddik who has elevated fear to its source and has merited to experience the Or HaGanuz, now shines with the hidden light, his face shines like a mirror reflecting light. With the hidden light he can “see” with true vision and view what is in the heart. This true vision can be seen, it shines out, like a mirror, showing the person, who looks in the tzaddik’s face, what is in his own heart.