The Power of Thought and Ayin HoRah

The Power of Thought and Ayin HoRah

By Eliakim Willner

Eliakim Willner is author of “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaTorah: An Appreciation of Torah Study”, a translation with commentary of a work by the Maharal of Prague, published by Artscroll Mesorah. This article is adapted from his forthcoming sequel, “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaAvodah: The Philosophy and Practice of Prayer”.

Introduction

The secular world views thought as an intangible brain activity with no implication beyond micro-current flowing through neurons. It is actions that count, they say, and thoughts that do not lead to actions have no import and are therefore meaningless.

This, however, is not the Jewish perspective on thought. The subject is wide-ranging and is worthy of a book in its own right. In this article we will summarize the Jewish perspective on thought with a focus on ayin hora, or evil eye – one of the better known areas where the reality of thought plays a significant role.

The Reality and Potency of Thought

The 10^th of the Rambam’s 13 principles of faith is that Hashem, “…knows all the deeds of human beings and their thoughts…”. This is evident in that there are commandments that are purely thought-based, such as belief in Hashem. There are also prohibitions that are triggered by motivation such as, “Do not… place a stumbling block before the blind” (Vayikra 19:14) which encompasses intentionally giving bad advice in order to achieve personal gain. The verse continues, “and you shall fear your G-d”. Rashi explains that the verse adds this phrase as a wake-up call to the advice-giver. He might want to claim that his advice was well-meant and not intended for his own benefit, so the verse exhorts him to remember that Hashem knows his motivations and thoughts and if they are in fact selfish he will have to face the consequences. It is clear that our thoughts are not ours alone. They are known outside of ourselves.

Beyond that, thoughts have an effect on the physical world. See Nefesh HaChaim, Shaar Aleph, and in particular chapters 4 and 14, where Rav Chaim Volozhiner explains that our actions, words and thoughts have the power to affect the celestial worlds, and that since the celestial worlds control the flow of Hashem’s beneficence to our own world, improper thoughts and motivations can negatively affect events in our physical world, and proper thoughts and motivations can positively affect events in our physical world. He cites the verse, “He forms their hearts together, He understands all their deeds” (Tehillim 33:15) – the same verse cited by the Rambam in support of his 10^th principle.

Thoughts, then, have both a reality and a potency outside our minds. Not only do they accrue merit or demerit to their “owners” but they also affect the world-at-large as well.

The Power of an Individual’s Thoughts and the Evil Eye

It is also possible for an individual’s thoughts to have a positive or negative effect even on specific people. In Michtav MiEliyahu v.3 pages 96-97 Rav Eliyahu Dessler explains that Hashem created man, as the Torah teaches, “in the image of G-d” (Beraishis 9:6) and that means that Hashem gave man capabilities “resembling” His own, as it were. Now, Hashem created the world by willing it into existence (in ten “steps”, as discussed by our Sages). We were granted a similar power to affect reality by willing things to happen. Our thoughts actually create an “energy” that triggers events.

From a practical standpoint these events often do not come to fruition because the object of our wish may himself have wishes that run counter to our own and the energy created by his wishes may overpower and negate the energy of our own wishes. Possibly he has merits that shield him from the negative effects of our wishes.

Nonetheless, even if the energy does not come to fruition on its intended object, it remains in existence and must find an “outlet”. The Maharal in Chapter 2 of Beer Hagolah compares this pent-up energy to throwing a rock with force. If it hits its target the force is expended but if it is blocked it bounces back and rebounds on the person who did the throwing.

The Maharal explains how this works in the context of the aidim zomimim (false witness) laws. The Torah specifies that false witnesses suffer the sentence that would have been imposed on their scapegoat had their testimony not been disproven. However this applies only if the sentence on the intended scapegoat had not already been carried out. For example, if the false witnesses testified that their scapegoat killed someone – a capital offense – and their testimony was discredited, the false witnesses would themselves be subject to capital punishment, but only if their scapegoat had not yet been executed. If he had been executed the false witnesses would not be executed.

This provision seems counter-intuitive. It would seem that the harsher punishment should apply if the scapegoat had been executed rather than only when he was still alive! The Maharal explains that the will of the false witnesses to harm the scapegoat generates a fatal negative energy that must find release. If the scapegoat is in fact killed that negative energy was expended. If their intent to harm the scapegoat was not actualized, however, the negative energy is active and it bounces back on the false witnesses themselves, causing them to suffer the fate they intended for their scapegoat – like the analogy of a rock thrown with force hitting a wall and ricocheting back on the thrower.

Rav Dessler writes that if all humankind joined in willing a common goal it would be in its power to bring it about since there would be no counter for all the common thought-energy created thereby. Because that common goal might not be a good one, Hashem blocked such events from taking place by making it impossible for mankind to unite for an evil common goal – this is the underlying explanation of the events of the tower of Bavel (see Beraishis 11). Humankind will only be able to join in a common goal at the end of days when all will join in service to Hashem and there will no longer be a motivation toward evil.

Rav Chaim Friedlander, citing Rav Dessler and the Chazon Ish, whom we will quote shortly, discusses this as well in Sifsei Chaim, Pirkei Emunah V’Hashgacha, page 393 and explains that this concept is the basis behind ayin horah, or “evil eye”. A very common impetus for willing something negative to happen to another person is jealousy or simply an inability to begrudge someone else their good fortune. The negative energy released is real and dangerous and thus our Sages urge us to be circumspect about our possessions and good fortune and avoid ostentation and braggadocio. (It is called “evil eye” and not “evil thought” because the process of casting ill-will on a person begins with seeing him or his possessions, as we will explain).

What are the mechanics behind this negative thought energy and its ability to have a harmful effect on others? Rav Dessler, in Michtav MiEliyahu 4, p. 6, explains that no man is a spiritual island; we are all interconnected at our spiritual roots and are therefore interdependent. We all derive some degree of spiritual energy from every other being. People who do not begrudge others their good fortune, whose very existence bothers them, blot these others out from any of their emanations of positive spiritual energy. Therefore, to the extent that the web of interdependencies that sustains the evil eye victim relies on the evil eye perpetrator, the victim is cut off from a vital life source. He is weakened, vulnerable and susceptible to harm.

In this light we understand that ayin horah is very real and not at all a “superstition”. It is discussed in Gemara and cited as a factor affecting Jewish law – halacha. For example, one may not display a lost object, even for its own benefit (air it out, etc.) if visitors are present because it may be damaged, as Rashi explains, by ayin horah of the visitors (Baba Metziah 30a). One may not stand in the field of his fellow when the crop is ripe because, as Rashi explains, he may damage it through his ayin horah (Baba Basra 2b). Two brothers, or a father and son, may not be called consecutively to the Torah because of ayin horah (Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 141:6). And, soberingly, the Gemara in Baba Metziah 107b says that Rav went to a cemetery, recited incantations over the individual graves to ascertain the cause of death and reported that ninety-nine percent died through ayin horah, and only one percent through natural causes.

The Chazon Ish discusses the power of thought to affect events in Likutim, Baba Basra 14, #21. He writes, citing several sources in the Gemara, that a person’s thoughts can imperceptibly trigger real-world events and that this is one of the enigmatic aspects of creation. A fleeting thought, he says, can wreak serious destruction on substantial physical structures. Therefore when people gossip about a successful venture, they jeopardize it since that can cause jealousy and result in the evil eye.

Evil Eye in the Context of Divine Justice

One must keep in mind, the Chazon Ish, cautions, that Hashem’s will is behind all events and that if it were not the will of Hashem for damage to occur no evil eye could instigate it. The evil eye in this respect is one of the tools in Hashem’s arsenal, so to speak, that He uses to carry out His will. [It is no different from a gun wielded by a criminal – which also appears to cause harm even though it is also only an agent of Hashem in carrying out His will.]

In this light it is clear that one can only suffer from an evil eye as a result of a divine decree. Negative divine decrees are typically the outcome of improper actions. One way a person can bring evil eye vulnerability on himself is by ostentatiously flaunting possessions or attributes in a manner that evokes jealousy in others. While jealousy is improper, a jealous person nonetheless suffers and a person who causes others to be jealous is responsible for their suffering. This can activate the divine attribute of justice and cause a revaluation of his entitlement to the things he was flaunting, in light of the pain he caused to others by making them jealous of him – and to possibly lose those things (from Michtav MiEliyahu 3, p. 313).

(It is also plausible, the Chazon Ish says, that the greater the person, the greater the potency of his “eye” in both positive and negative senses. There are also factors that affect susceptibility to the evil eye – for example there are times when Hashem’s attribute of strict justice is dominant and people are judged more harshly than they would be otherwise. At such times the evil eye is more likely to have its negative effect.)

Evil Eye as a “Klippo”

Rav Shlomo Alkabetz, in his Kabbalah-based work Shoresh Yishai on Rus, associates the evil eye with a klippah, a spiritual entity rooted in impurity. Klippos, like all spiritual entities, are agents of Hashem, but these particular agents are enforcers when punishment is called for. The klippah associated with the evil eye is named Ra’ah, which means “evil”. It attaches itself to that which a miserly eye is cast upon, infecting it and using it as a “base” from which to emanate harm.

Why, asks Rav Alkabetz (on Rus 2:2), did Boaz warn Rus not to collect harvest leavings from fields other than his own? The answer is that some field owners resented the stricture to permit the poor to collect the leavings. They possessed an ayin ra’ah, or evil eye, and thereby invoked the klippah named Ra’ah, which attached itself to the leavings in their fields. Gathering and using those leavings would thus bring misfortune to the hapless poor person who collected them. Boaz was warning Rus to avoid those harmful leavings and to stick with those in his own field since, unlike some of the other field owners, Boaz had an ayin tova, a benevolent eye, and his leavings would thus not be harmful to the leaving-collectors.

The Maharal on Evil Eye

The Maharal devotes Nesiv Ayin Tov (“a good eye”) of Nesivos Olam to discussing this subject. Similar to Rav Alkabetz, but without referencing Klippos, he notes, based on a Gemara in Sotah 38b, that the evil eye has contaminating properties and substances infected with it are outside the pale. Attempting to benefit from these substances is equivalent to attempting to benefit from substances that are tameh, spiritually befouled, and is actually (per the Gemara) prohibited. Rav Dessler explains this to mean that since benevolence is one of the world’s foundations, a person who lacks it – such as a person who possesses an evil eye – shakes the world’s very foundations and weakens his own attachment to existence as well as the attachment of those who associate with him, by causing them to benefit from his evil-eye-infected possessions. The prohibition against benefiting from these substances is to safeguard people from this danger.

The Maharal also writes that the negative energy emanated by a person with an ayin horah is so palpable that birds can actually sense it and most of them will therefore avoid traps set for them because they can detect the negative energy of the bird-trappers. In discussing the relationship between ayin horah and the egla arufa ritual he states that ayin horah can kill – as borne out by the Gemara in Baba Metziah cited above – and he labels the person casting the ayin horah a murderer.

The Maharal concludes the Nesiv with, “A person should take extreme care to protect his possessions from ayin horah, as our Sages taught, ‘blessing devolves only on items that are hidden from the eye’ (Taanis 8b) as the verse indicates, ‘Hashem will order the blessing to be with you in your granaries’ (Devarim 28:8). [The blessing takes effect when the produce is hidden in the granaries and not when it is exposed.]

Antidotes for Evil Eye

The first line of defense against the evil eye is circumspection. As noted above, flying below the radar with respect to one’s possessions and attributes inoculates them against the evil eye. However we are not hermits and it is not always possible to avoid exposing one’s assets to others.

The Gemara in Brachos 55a prescribes advice for those who wish to protect themselves from the evil eye. It suggests that one should grasp his right thumb in [the palm of] his left hand, and his left thumb in [the palm of] his right hand and say, “anah ploni bar plonis mi’zarah d’Yosef k’asina, d’loh shalta bay aina bisha”. “I, Ploni [his name] son of Plonis [his mother’s name] am a descendant of Yosef, who was immune to the evil eye”. The Gemara goes on to explain why Yosef was immune to the evil eye, as we will discuss shortly. The origin of this advice is a Gemara in Brachos 20a which states that Rabbi Yochanan did, for good reason, something that could cause the evil eye but claimed immunity from it as a descendant of Yosef. The commentators cite verses to explain that all Jews are considered the spiritual descendants of Yosef even if they are not his physical descendants, so we may all use this formula.

Rav Chaim Kanievsky shlita, as cited in Sefer Doleh U’Mashkeh p. 370 and in Sefer Segulas Rabboseinu p. 138 recommends this practice to those who fear the evil eye. He also specified that the mother’s name, rather than the father’s name (as some versions of the Gemara have it) be used in the formula.

The Ben Ish Chai in Sefer Ben Yehoyada on the Gemara in Brachos provides a Kabbalah-based reason for the grasping of the thumbs. He explains that the thumbs, which are separate from the other fingers, represent Yisroel, who are separate from the other nations. The other four fingers with the palm, in which the opposing thumb is grasped, contain thirteen joints (three on each finger plus the wrist) which is the Gematria numeric value of echod, one, and of ahava, love. Grasping the thumbs in the manner described creates a unity with a value of twenty-six (thirteen doubled) which is the Gematria value of Hashem’s ineffable name (yud followed by hai following by vov followed by hai). Presumably he means that this action envelopes Yisroel (thumbs) in our love of Hashem (who is One) and places us under the protection of Hashem via invocation of his ineffable name. More information on this intriguing shield against the evil eye can be found in Sefer Segulas Rabboseinu by Yishai Mazalmian (5763).

Finally, if we are claiming protection from the evil eye as descendants of Yosef it behooves us to understand why Yosef was immune to the evil eye and attempt to emulate him as best we can. The Gemaros in Brachos gives two  reasons. The first is based on the blessings Yaakov gave the sons of Yosef (Beraishis 48:16). In those blessings he compared the descendants of Yosef to fish, who are immune to the evil eye because they are concealed by the water. As explained above, concealment of one’s assets is the first line of defense against the evil eye.  The second reason is that Yosef steadfastly resisted the blandishments of the wife of Potiphar (Beraishis 39) and refused to sin with her – as the Gemara puts it, “the eye that refused to sate itself on that which did not belong to him is shielded from the evil eye”.

Rav Dessler (Michtav MiEliyahu 4 p. 6) explains that both properties derive from fish. Since they live under water, not only are they shielded from the gaze of others, but they live in their own world, isolated from the goings-on in the dry-land world around them. They are not seen by the “outside” and they do not see, and therefore cannot covet, what others have on the outside.

If we inculcate both these properties of Yosef into our own lives – that is, we are circumspect with our possessions and we build walls around ourselves to avoid the temptations of the outside world, and thus do not cast our eye on the possession of others – we will be secure, like Yosef, against ayin hora. In that event we can legitimately call ourselves Yosef’s descendants and utilize the Gemara’s segulah with a clean conscience.

May Hashem protect us from the ayin horah of others and bless us to project only ayin tov onto others.