Weekly Shmuess - 033 Balak | Viewing Others With The Good Eye

The “Good Eye” and “The Evil Eye”

Regarding Parashas Balak, there is a Mishnah of our Sages: “The students of Avraham have a good eye…whereas the students of Bilaam have an evil eye.” A person has the power to have a “good eye” towards others – or an “evil eye” towards others.

The powers of “good eye” and “evil eye” are part of the soul’s power to see. There is the faculty of imaginary sight, and there is the faculty of realistic sight.

An example of imaginary sight is that in the future, Hashem will slaughter the evil inclination, where the righteous and the wicked will cry; to the righteous, the evil inclination looked like a mountain, and to the wicked, the evil inclination looked like a hair.[1] Thus, the evil inclination is a form of seeing, through the imagination.

Another kind of seeing is when one sees through his intellect. This is called “eyes of the intellect”. As we spoke about in Parashas Shelach, according to the level that a person is on, that is how he will see reality. Although reality is always one single reality, each person sees it differently, depending on his level.

Getting more specific, there is a way to see from a “good eye” and, correspondingly, a way to see from the “evil eye”. What is the source of the good eye (ayin tovah) and bad eye (ayin ra)? Where do these powers of sight stem from?

1- The Basic Level of Ayin Tovah\Good Eye – Becoming A More Positive Person

There are several ways of how a person can gain the view of the “good eye” (ayin tovah). A basic use of this power is when a person trains himself to see things in a positive light, and to see the good in everything.

After all, Hashem created a universe that is entirely “good”; on a deeper level, Hashem carved out the entire Creation from His own goodness, and there is no such thing as evil in Hashem, so the entire Creation is good, in its essence.

Ever since Adam and Chavah ate from the Eitz HaDaas Tov V’Ra (the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil), which was a mixture of good and evil, everything in Creation has become a mix of good and evil. Therefore, the world we see in front of us is a mix of good and evil, for that is what reality has become. Since that is the case, how then can a person see reality with a “good eye”? One way to gain the view of a “good eye” is, as mentioned above: To train oneself to see the good in everything.

One can slowly but surely work on becoming a more positive person, by trying to discover something positive in each thing he comes across. Even when viewing something that seems to be bad, a person can train himself to start seeing the good side in something.

The Disadvantages With Trying To See The Good In Everything

That is surely a constructive kind of self-work, and it is certainly commendable to do so. However, to remain at this level is superficial. After all, even animals can be trained to do certain things. Therefore, “training” oneself to getting used to new habits and thinking patterns is only a superficial kind of growth, so we should not remain at that level. There is more inner work to be done.

There is also a stronger point to consider about this. On one hand, it is wonderful to start seeing things in a positive light and to see good in everything, but on the other hand, this might cause a person to distort reality. He will come to deny that there’s anything bad in the world, and he will only see the good in something, ignoring the reality he encounters.

Also, even when he gets used to seeing the good in everything, he doesn’t change inwardly. He has gotten used to this habitually, so it has become “second nature” to him, but his original nature hasn’t yet changed. He has simply learned how to see things differently, but in doing so, he denies reality.

So while it is certainly a good thing that he has learned how to see the good in things, there is also a downside to this type of avodah.

Even worse, if a person gets used to only seeing the good in things and never the bad, he will train himself to deny that there is any evil in the world, and this is simply not true. Hashem created both good and evil in reality, and we must be wary of the presence of evil in this reality we live in.

If a person gets used to ignoring the evil in the world, he will become more susceptible to the evil influences in the world, because he will not be vigilant of the danger. He won’t be careful in avoiding evil, because he has gotten so used to denying the evil in the world. His spiritual situation is in danger, and he will become connected with evil.

2 – Through Love For Others

Here is an additional method, which is a method we can use in order to gain the quality of viewing others with a “good eye”: The more that a person develops a love for Hashem’s creations, the better he will be able to view them in a positive light.

Compare this to a father’s love for his child; the father loves the child and therefore he ignores the child’s faults, because the love covers over the faults and allows him to see past them. This is the verse, “Upon all sins, love conceals”. When there is love, the love covers and conceals any of the evil that is there, enabling you to see past it and to view the other in a positive light. There is a deep force of love in our souls which wants to see only the good in Creation, and to look past all the evil.

Love is the root of having a “good eye” towards others, and for this reason, a person who has the quality of a “good eye” is of the “students of Avraham Avinu”, because Avraham personified the trait of kindness, which is rooted in his great love for all of the creations. Loving others enables you to view others positively. When your soul is connected to the power to love the creations, in turn, you will want to see the good in others, as an automatic byproduct of the love.

Thus, a “good eye” doesn’t start with simply trying to have a “good eye” towards others; it is but the result of love. What we see from this is that a “good eye” is not simply a superficial kind of training to try to view others positively, but a kind of self-work which must originate from within. The “good eye” does not become acquired merely through habitual kinds of training, but from somewhere deep inside you, from a love, which wants to see the good in Hashem’s creations.

The first method mentioned earlier, where a person tries to get used to seeing others in a positive light, is a superficial method which, if you are persistent in it, it can eventually penetrate the soul and affect you internally. This is true about any kind of external self-work. But if you use the second method mentioned – to reveal a love for the creations, which is the inner method – the result will be that you will develop an inner kind of “good eye” towards others.

Even more so, if you connect to the good that is within you and to focus on it, this in turn will cause you to see the good in the creation around you. The more you are connected to your own inward good, the more you will see good on the outside world in front of you. The same is also true vice versa – the more a person focuses on the evil parts of himself, the more negative of a view he will have towards the creations around him.

Fighting The Evil In Ourselves, While Seeing The Good In Others

This leads to us the following fundamental point.

A person contains a mixture of good and evil, and his avodah is to remove the evil and reveal the good. “The inclination of the heart of man is evil from his youth”. We must remove the evil from within us, but how? If there is always evil embedded into us, how do we have the power to remove it? Simply speaking, we need to wage war with the evil inside us, and to keep fighting it.

However, it is too difficult for a person to fight evil at every moment of the day. A person cannot live in a state of constant fighting. If he is fighting evil all day, that means he is constantly meeting up with evil and dealing with it. That, itself, makes him connected to the evil!

That is why if a person is constantly fighting the evil in himself (and he never connects to his own good), he will usually see evil in others, and all the time. It is because he is dealing with evil all day, so naturally, he will see the evil everywhere, in everyone he meets.

If a person is someone who is engaged in a lot of personal self-work, he will be able to see the good in others, and only see evil in himself. This is actually a deep contradiction in the soul: To never see evil in others, and only their good; and at the same time, to only notice the evil in yourself.

Through getting used to only seeing the good in others and ignoring their faults, you can gain a “good eye” towards them (as mentioned earlier). Or, you can use the more inner method, which is to love all creations, and then you will only see good in them. The inner method, however, requires great purity of character, in order for a person to genuinely acquire a pure love for others.

3 – Stop Being Judgmental

For this, we can mention the famous words of the Kotzker, who explained that the teaching “Do not judge your friend until you reach his place” means that you will never fully understand another person, so don’t judge him. Each person is a complete world to himself, and it is impossible to see the full picture of another person. You will never fully get down to the subtleties of his character, so you cannot really judge him accurately. You just have to believe that Hashem created him a certain way, which you will never completely understand.

In Summary

When you get used to this idea, you will be able to see others with the “good eye”. It will enable you to only fight the evil within you and not to deal with the evil in others, because you will only see the good in others, either because:

(1)  You have gotten used to focusing only on their positive points, or

(2)  Because you have developed a love for others, or

(3)  Because you have learned how to stop being judgmental towards others, because you are aware that you will never fully understand another person’s life.

Focusing On Our Good

So far, we have discussed how you battle the evil in yourself, while avoiding seeing any evil in others. But as we mentioned, this is only one side of the coin. The second part of our avodah always is, to reveal our own good. A person must be able to see the good in himself.

We certainly have a lot of evil to remove from ourselves. We must remove the evil character traits, as well as any personal agendas and ulterior, self-serving motivations; those are all “illnesses” of the soul. But our main focus should be on our good. As proof, the main mitzvah [for a man] is Torah study, which is the involvement of the mind in the ultimate “good” there is, for “there is no good except Torah.” 

What Is More Important – Torah Learning, or Avodah (Self-Work)?

There are those who feel that their main avodah in life is to fight the evil within them, to work on matters of personal avodah – with less focus on Torah learning. They learn Torah too, but they place the main emphasis on matters of personal avodah, with less emphasis on improving their Torah learning. Let us see how this is a mistaken attitude.

What is the main aspect of life? Is it Torah learning, or personal avodah? If the main point of our life should be spent on personal avodah, a person would be contending all day with evil forces. When the focus is mainly on “avodah” and not on Torah learning, such a person, even while he is learning Torah, is only learning it for the sake of purifying himself from his evil inclination. Although Chazal state that Torah learning is the remedy for the yetzer hora (the evil inclination), this is not the main purpose of Torah study.

(On a more subtle note, there are some souls who do have this avodah to mainly use Torah study as a way to overcome their yetzer hora [but generally speaking, this is not the case with most people]).

The truthful approach to take is that the main part of life should be spent on focusing on the “good” (Torah learning), as opposed to placing more of an emphasis on purging ourselves from the “evil” (fixing our character and purifying our inner motivations). Therefore, our main work in life is with Torah study, which is the “good” of life. That is where we need to mainly connect our souls to. “And in His Torah he delves, day and night.” The Torah is referred to as the “good” in the verse, “For a good purchase I have given to you.”

Even more so, the ultimate level of connecting to “good” is to connect our soul to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Who is entirely good [Who is found through Torah study].

Thus, the main part of our life should be to connect to the “good” of life, with less of an emphasis on contending with all of the forces of evil. In the end of the day, we have a yetzer hora (evil inclination), and therefore we certainly have an avodah to remove evil. But the main emphasis of our avodah on this world is with focusing on the “good” that is here – which is each person’s Torah learning.

The “Good Eye” - The Power of Moshe Rabbeinu

The Sages state the verse “A good eye, he shall be blessed” is referring to Moshe Rabbeinu. Why is Moshe the epitome of the “good eye”? There are many explanations, but along the lines of our discussion, it is because Moshe was utterly connected to the Torah, and to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, through the Torah. The Torah is epitomizes as “good”, and the ultimate good is HaKadosh Baruch Hu; since Moshe reached the highest level of connecting to the “good” of life, he epitomized the quality of the “good eye”.

The more that a person connects his soul to Torah, and to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the more he will acquire the “good eye”, because his soul will be in a place of “good”.

From Avraham Avinu, who perfected the trait of kindness\love, we received the power to love others, from the depths of the soul. But after we were given the Torah, we received an even deeper level, which was through Moshe: to experience a dimension where everything is completely good. Even in the current time we live in, where the world is a terribly disturbing mixture of good and evil together, it is still possible for us to experience a point where everything is good: being immersed in Torah study.

In Conclusion

When one learns Torah, during that time, he is removed from this lowly, depraved world, and he can see the World To Come. He can live here on This World yet see the World To Come; as it is written, “Your world [to come] can be seen in your life.”