Q&A: The Mirror Paradox
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
The Mirror Paradox
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I assume that when you explained why a mirror reverses right and left and not up and down, you also explained why writing appears reversed in a mirror.
But I didn’t see a specific explanation about the reversal of writing. If the Rabbi could explain briefly, thank you very much.
Answer
I didn’t understand what the problem is. The fact that the mirror reverses right and left is not the issue. The question was why it does not reverse up and down, and vice versa. In other words, what is the difference between the X-axis and the Y-axis? That is true for writing as well, so it’s the same explanation.
With the host’s permission, I’d like to say something: the mirror does not “reverse” right and left, and in fact it does not reverse anything at all. You can see this for yourself: take a transparent object, write a word on it, and place it in front of the mirror. You’ll see that there is no reversal at all. We, not the mirror, are responsible for the “reversal.” Words usually appear on objects that we need to turn toward the mirror in order to see them in it, and when we do that, we tend to do it from right to left. But you can also turn them in such a way that the words are reversed vertically.