The Harm of the Evil Eye
נזקה של עין הרע
The “evil eye” (ayin ha-ra) is a hostile gaze of one person at another, a gaze that stems from begrudging and envying his success – for example, begrudging his honor, his wealth, his wisdom, his health, his strength, his beauty, or his good or numerous children. Out of the hostile gaze, the one with the evil eye finds fault in the other and belittles his achievements.
The evil eye does harm on revealed and hidden levels. The revealed harm stems from damage to a person’s self-confidence. When a person knows that others are looking at him with an evil eye or thinking ill of him, he may lose his self-confidence, feel threatened, and find it difficult to act in a balanced and precise way. As a result, he will err and fail. Even when a person is unaware of the bad thoughts being thought about him, sometimes his soul senses the negative energy surrounding him, and he is unable to function properly. In addition, when a person thinks ill of his fellow, other people sense it, and they too may develop hostility toward him that will cause them to suspect him and distance themselves from him.
On a hidden level, since all souls are bound to one another, just as a person’s negative thought about himself can harm his body, so it can harm another. In addition, since man was created in the image of God, his thought has an influence on all the worlds; therefore, when he envies another and thinks ill of him, he may arouse an accusation against him, so that the heavenly court will examine whether he is worthy of the good he has merited, and perhaps he deserves to be punished.
Sometimes the harm from the evil eye does not come from negative thoughts, but, on the contrary, from exaggerated positive publicity that creates great expectations among the public that from now on this talented person will succeed far beyond the ordinary. These expectations create great pressure on him, for if he does not succeed greatly he will lose the public’s admiration; and in order to justify the honor accorded him, he will try with all his might to succeed, until from so much pressure he loses his balance and fails. Sometimes he will also try crooked ways to continue his success, until he falls into the lowest pit. Therefore it is proper for a person to be modest (more on this below, sections 5-6).
The evil eye is the basis of the curses of sorcerers. As the Sages said (Avot 5:19), there were three bad traits in the disciples of the wicked Bil’am: “An evil eye, a haughty spirit, and a greedy soul.” The first of them is an “evil eye,” because the beginning of the corruption stems from a person being begrudging, envying another and wishing him harm. This was the main work of the sorcerers: they knew how to expose the deep flaws in every person, and thereby succeeded in accusing him and cursing him in a way that activated the angels of destruction to harm him. But even a person who is not a sorcerer and does not know how to activate the angels of destruction, when he looks at another with an evil eye, raises an accusation against him that may harm him.¹
Notes (1)
- The explanation that the evil eye harms because souls are bound to one another – and just as the soul influences the body, so it can also influence another body – is brought in Derashot Ha-Ran 8; Ein Aya, Berakhot 3:37; 9:62; Shemona Kevatzim 4:117. Some explained that the evil eye sends out venomous negative energy (Rabbeinu Yona, Avot 2:11; Torat Ḥayim, Bava Batra 118b). It is related about the Amora Rav that he looked at one of the cemeteries in Babylonia and said that of every hundred of the dead there, ninety-nine died from the evil eye and one in the way of all the earth (Bava Metzia 107b). Simply understood, the meaning is not that without the evil eye they would have lived many more years, since as a rule a person’s length of days is determined according to his destiny and his deeds; rather, they could have died in the way of all the earth a little later and with an easy death, and because of the evil eye their lives were shortened and their deaths were harder (see Tosafot there; Petaḥ Einayim of the Ḥida there). And perhaps Rav meant that indeed, without the existence of the evil eye, people in general could have lived many more years, for they would have been more closely bound to the source of life. In the Land of Israel divine providence is more revealed, and therefore people there are less harmed by the hidden evil eye that influences the angels of destruction; rather, the main harm in the Land of Israel is from the begrudging eye of which a person is aware. Thus it is explained in Yerushalmi Shabbat 14:3 that Rav held that ninety-nine of every hundred die from the evil eye because he lived in Babylonia, a place where the harm of the evil eye is great. Similarly, R. Shlomo Kluger wrote (Ḥokhmat Ha-Torah, Parashat Miketz) that when Israel are in the Land, “the evil eye has no power over them, for the Land of Israel protects them; but outside the Land the evil eye has power over them.” And likewise our master Rav Kook wrote (Ezrat Kohen 6) that the evil eye grows stronger in accordance with the strength of the force of impurity in that place.