What does “one who has a good eye will be blessed” mean?

Rabbi Landau explains the verse “Tov ayin hu yevorach” simply: “If you have a good eye and happy when others succeed, then you are blessed.” A good eye means being glad, not resentful, when someone else wins.

The reason, he teaches, is that money is energy. It flows, and it flows through relationship. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau compares a person to a channel: a good eye widens it and lets blessing flow through him to others and to him, while the bitterness of an evil eye narrows it, first of all in the one who carries it.

So the blessing is not a prize handed out from outside. In his words, it is a chain reaction: when the people around you benefit from your success, “you will benefit when they succeed.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

The one who is glad at others’ success is blessed.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

In the book Rabbi Landau writes that when a friend succeeds, many people feel a small pinch in the heart, as if wealth were a pie.

Deepest human truth

Rabbi Landau writes that the one with a good eye is not only blessed; he becomes a source of blessing for everyone around him.

More questions from this teaching

• Does resenting other people’s success block my own?