The Blessing of a Good Eye

“One who has a good eye will be blessed, for he gives of his bread to the poor.” A Moment We All Know There is a moment we all know. A friend tells you he just closed a great deal. A neighbor is moving into a bigger apartment. Someone who studies Torah alongside you is doing better than you are. And for a moment, even just one second, you feel a small pinch in your heart. It isn’t joy, not really. It is a kind of restlessness. Don’t be ashamed of it. It is natural. It is human. But this is exactly the place our Sages and the great Hasidic teachers spoke about. There is enormous depth here, and it can change the whole way you look at making a living. The verse says: “One who has a good eye will be blessed.” It is simple and clear. But what is the inner link between having a “good eye” and being blessed? Is the blessing just a reward on the side, a kind of measure for measure? Or is there a completely different depth here? Making a Living Is Not a Pie The basic mistake people make about making a living is to think that wealth is a fixed, limited resource. It is like a pie you slice into pieces, and every bigger piece someone else gets leaves a smaller piece for you. If you see things this way, another person’s success is, by its very nature, your loss. But this is a crude, purely material way of seeing things. Hasidic teaching explains that the abundance we see in the material world is a garment for a divine vitality that “fills all worlds.” This vitality flows. It never runs out, and it has no limit. The word for “abundance” appears thousands of times in the books of Jewish mysticism and Hasidic teaching to describe exactly this. It is a constant flow from above to below, from Hashem, the Infinite, blessed be He, all the way down to this physical world. That includes making a living, business, and every success of any kind. And if abundance is a flow, then the question is not “How much can I grab?” The question is “How wide is the channel it can flow through?” The Parable of the Channel Here is a simple parable that touches the heart of the matter. Picture a water channel, like a pipe. The channel does not make the water. It only carries it. The wider the channel, the more water flows through it. The narrower it is, the less water flows. And if there is a blockage in the middle, the water is almost completely stopped. A person is a channel. Blessing flows from above, and it passes through him into the world. Having a “good eye” means being truly glad when someone else succeeds and truly wanting good things for your friend. That widens the channel. It lets abundance flow freely, both through him to others and to him as well. An “evil eye” is the opposite. It is jealousy, the bitterness you feel when someone else succeeds. It is not only a bad moral trait. It is a blockage. It narrows the channels of abundance in the person himself. The Zohar, the foundational book of Jewish mysticism, describes how an evil eye works like a harsh judgment, like a holding back. It works this way not only toward the person being looked at, but first and foremost toward the person who carries it inside him. A jealous person blocks himself. This is the meaning of the verse on a deeper level. “One who has a good eye will be blessed.” He will be blessed because a good eye is the very mechanism through which blessing arrives. This is not a reward from outside. It is an inner law. The Root: All Souls Are One So far we have only spoken about the mechanism. But there is a deeper root. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains that all Jewish souls are like one soul. As the Torah says: “Love your fellow as yourself.” This means truly as yourself, because in truth he is like you. Seen from this point, when your friend succeeds, part of you succeeds. This is not poetry. It is a spiritual truth. Once you understand this, being happy for someone else’s success is no longer some “good character trait” you have to force on yourself. It becomes a natural, simple response. Your right hand is glad that your left hand can help it, because both are one body. In the same way, I am glad when my friend succeeds. In this light, jealousy is like an autoimmune disease of the soul. It is a condition in which the body attacks itself. The person I am jealous of is part of me. Closing: From Blessed to a Blessing Our Sages read this verse in a new way. In Hebrew, the same letters can be read two ways. They said: “Do not read it ‘he will be blessed.’ Read it ‘he will bless.’” A person with a good eye is not only blessed. He himself becomes one who blesses. He becomes a source of blessing for everyone around him. This is a complete turnaround. He is no longer a person hunting for the biggest slice of the pie. He has become a source of abundance himself.