How can we change our perspective on others, open our eyes anew and see them in a positive light? This task is fitting for the month of Tevet, as according to Kabbalah this month was created with the letter ayin (which means ‘eye’). A simple connection between the name of the letter and the name of the month (the first two letters of Tevet mean ‘good’) creates the concept of ayin tovah (good eye).
Pirkei Avot, which is dedicated to refining character traits, teaches that a "good eye" is a trait that distinguished Abraham, as opposed to the "evil eye" which was the trait of the wicked Balaam – and we should be "among the disciples of Abraham our father" who merit to "eat in this world [live good and happy lives] and inherit the world to come [the reward for their good deeds]"[1]. Simply put, a "good eye" means looking positively at others – as opposed to the trait of an evil eye that sees and emphasizes the empty and bad side, the specialty of the wicked Balaam. But how do we adopt the perspective of a good eye?
How the Eye Sees
To understand this, let us contemplate our special letter, ayin, and begin with the fact that the word "ayin" has three main meanings in Hebrew: 1. The organ of sight. 2. The appearance and color of a thing, as in the verses "the eye of the land",[2] "and its color was like the color of bdellium".[3] 3. A spring, as in "I stand by the spring of water"[4]. These meanings are interconnected, as our eye sees the appearance of things, and there is a surprising similarity between the eye (from which tear drops constantly flow) and a spring of living water.
The eye is a wondrous organ, and the process of seeing until the final processing of visual perception in the brain is even more wondrous. We tend to think that vision is completely objective, that we see things exactly as they are – but the more we understand the visual system, the more we realize that vision is not just a reflection of external reality, but (mainly) how we perceive it. And if this is true for physical vision, all the more so for spiritual vision: How do I see and judge others? It depends on my perspective. The "eye" of the thing (its appearance and color) depends on my eye (and later we'll also get to the spring). But we still need to understand how we can determine and direct our perspective.
The Eye of Humility
Now let's look at the shape of the letter ayin. First, we notice something obvious: the letter ayin has two eyes! Simply look at the letter and imagine the two eyes at its top looking at you. More precisely, Kabbalistic texts explain that the letter ayin is written like an elongated nun with a vav inserted into it. If we combine the letters ayin, nun, and vav, we get the word anav (humble) – "Now the man Moses was very anav (humble), more than any person on the face of the earth."[5]
In our context, humility is the fundamental trait in the soul that directs positive perspective. Since Moses is "more humble than any person," he doesn't seek to measure himself as above anyone else, and therefore sees everyone with a kind and good eye.
It is easy to look favorably upon "good people," but what about people who truly do evil deeds? Moses can see a good point in every person, and even something unique that they have that Moses himself doesn't! Even if their actions are terrible, who knows what would have become of me if I were in exactly the same situation? And indeed, I can never be in exactly the same situation as another. "Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place,"[6] and since you will never reach his place, never judge him negatively, but rather "judge every person favorably."[7] This is also true of Abraham, who is the first in the Torah noted for his humility, "I am but dust and ashes,"[8] and therefore he has a very good eye towards everyone.
When we cultivate our ability to see everyone with a good eye, we discover that in every Jew there is a spring (ma’ayan, the third meaning of ayin) of living water. And even if the spring is blocked and covered with hard stones, a loving and positive vision can uncover it and bring forth the living waters. The source of water for the Children of Israel after the Exodus, during the forty years of wandering in the desert, was a miraculous well, called "Miriam's Well" – Miriam the Prophetess, with her good eyes, saw the sweet waters within every Jew (even if outwardly they seemed like bitter waters), and thus the well rises and flows, "Spring up, O well – sing to it!"[9]
Seeing in Seventy Shades
We've reached the numerical value of the letter ayin – seventy. The number seventy appears in the Torah in several famous contexts: Noah's descendants divide into seventy nations, speaking seventy languages; Jacob and his sons descend to Egypt as seventy souls; Moses gathers seventy elders to lead the people of Israel, and from here we also have the seventy-one permanent elder-judges in the Sanhedrin (the Great Court). In the words of the sages, the famous expression "The Torah has seventy faces" is well-known, and it is also mentioned that there are seventy names for the Holy One, Blessed be He.
What do all these have in common? They all deal with a spectrum of different shades expressing one thing, seventy viewpoints on the same matter. One of the fascinating phenomena regarding the letter ayin is its relationship with the letter alef – not only in their similar pronunciation (as we know, many languages have no equivalent to the letter ayin, and many of us don't manage to pronounce it properly), but also in many word pairs where the letter alef expresses the inner point of the letter ayin (for example, or עור skin -or [אור light-] – a person's skin (עור covers the light אור of the soul).[10] The same is true regarding the numbers seventy – they all express the one thing inside, the ayin (70) surrounds the alef (1).
In our context, we can look at every Jew in seventy colorful faces, seventy viewpoints perceived in the eye of the beholder (where the word panim [faces] equals einayim [eyes] in gematria). Just as the Children of Israel begin their journey as a people with seventy souls (as we read in the Torah during the month of Tevet), so too in every Jew there is a reflection of seventy different faces. The secret of the good eye is knowing how to choose the faces in which the other appears best and most beautiful, to direct our eye to perceive these beautiful faces.
Knowing How to Be Angry
After all the beautiful talk about love and a good eye, there's something in the month of Tevet that seemingly spoils the celebration. According to Kabbalah, the special soul-sense for the month of Tevet is the sense of anger! How does the sense of anger reconcile with the fundamental quality of the good eye that we strive to acquire as disciples of Abraham our father?
There is anger and there is anger. "In three things a person is known: in his cup (koso), in his pocket (kiso), and in his anger" (ka’aso). [11] What is covered inside the pocket, what is found inside the cup, and which ayin is under the cover to form the word anger (ka'as)? Anger that stems from an evil eye (like Balaam's anger) is negative and poisonous anger, destroying the world. It comes from pride that boils over everything that doesn't suit me and isn't subservient to me, "Whoever becomes angry is as if he worshipped idols."[12]
A person who conducts himself with a good eye, who is full of humility – like Abraham and Moses – also knows how to be angry in the right way. The correct anger begins with a person being angry at himself, more precisely – at the evil aspects within himself, "A person should always incite the good inclination against the evil inclination, as it is said, 'Tremble and sin not.'" A person was created with two eyes (like the shape of the letter ayin) – one to look at others with a good eye, and the other to look at oneself with a critical eye (in order to improve, not with the aim of despair, God forbid). Consequently, when I see something not good in another, first I should be angry at my evil inclination that prevents me from seeing the good in the other. Then, I look again at others with a good eye, judge them favorably, and succeed in separating between them and their actions and evil inclinations. Thus, one can reach clarified anger, to be angry at evil itself and wage a war of annihilation against it.
There is a fake "good eye" that only scatters flowers and sweet love. Such an eye does not distinguish between good and evil and between holiness and impurity, and thus it legitimizes all injustice and evil, and ultimately brings destruction. But a true good eye knows how to highlight the good and emphasize it, to be angry at evil and fight it, until the victory of good over evil, in the human soul and in the entire world.
[1]Pirkei Avot 5:19. Rashi explains “A good eye means that he doesn’t have jealousy of others and the honor of others is dear to him.”
[2] Exodus 10:5. See Rashi there.
[3] Numbers 11:7 (regarding the manna). And see the Radak on Genesis 20:16 “For the shade is called ‘ayin’.”
[4] Genesis 24:13.
[5] Numbers 12:3. (According to the ktiv).
[6] Pirkei Avot 2:4.
[7] Pirkei Avot 1:6.
[8] Genesis 18:27.
[9] Numbers 21:17. The word עֱנוּ in this verse is ענו the same as עָנָו that was written about Moses. These are the only two appearances in the Torah of this combination and order of the letters ענו.
[10] On the verse “And God made Adam and his wife garments of skin (עור) the Midrash that Rabbi Meir wrote spells עור with an alef, אור, “garments of light.” (Breishit Rabbah 20:12).
[11] Eruvin 65b.
[12] Rambam Hilchot Dei’ot 2:3. Zohar Part 3 179a.
