עין הרע

00:01 Speaker 1 All right, this is Igeris, and today we are going to talk about ayin hara. That is, we're gonna talk about the evil eye. We have in the past talked about superstitions and, uh, if you have followed along or you're familiar with the-- really with the Rebbe's approach in general to people who come to him with concerns of any kind, any sort of anxieties, and certainly any sorts of superstitions, uh, generally speaking, the Rebbe tells people hesed ha-das is key. Uh, the main key to not being damaged by negative thoughts or by superstitions or by anything like that is to put your mind away from it entirely, put it out of your head and not think about it. And if you're guessing that that's the Rebbe's approach to ayin hara, you are only half right, which is why this is a really interesting Igeris share. Uh, that's half of the Rebbe's approach to ayin hara, with the exception being that the Rebbe takes ayin hara a little more seriously or a lot more seriously than every other one of these superstitions that we've looked at in the past because this one's real. This one's real. Uh, ayin hara, once again, for those listening at home who don't like my Hebrew, that would be evil eye, the evil eye. And, uh, we have ayin hara all over traditional Jewish works. So I have some primary sources on the screen for you. We do a little bit of a primary source tour today. I sorted them nicely. They're

01:03 Speaker 1 on the screen in a PDF. I can make them a little bigger, probably. There we go. That's a little bigger. Even bigger? Nice. So we have the Gemara Bava Metzia. It's on one zero seven B that says, "Beis Hashem echalko cheili," that "Hashem will one day remove all s-- all kinds of disease from us." "Amar Rav, zei ha'ayin." Rav says that means that one day, Hashem will remove or that Hashem guarantees that he will remove evil eye from us, and that would be the main danger. Why does Rav identify ayin hara as the main danger? The Gemara goes on to say, "Rav le-tamey." The Rav is going according to his own reasoning. "Derav salak l'veikivre." One time, Rav went to visit a cemetery. "Bavid maid deavid," and he did what he did. I don't know what he did. He did what he did. He said something that helped him figure out what was going on in the cemetery. Says he did what he did. "Amar," and then he said, "Tish'im v'sishah be'ayin ra, ve'echad bederech eretz." Of the one hundred people in the cemetery, ninety-nine of them died by ayin hara, and one of them died nat-- of natural causes, implying that ninety-nine percent of people who are dead, uh, who, who have died ultimately die because of ayin hara. So this is a actual real concern. Evil eye seems to be something that is the major cause of death, that only one percent of people die of natural causes and that the average person,

02:09 Speaker 1 much more than the average person, ninety-nine percent of people, they die of evil eye. We have another Gemara in Bava Metzia. Bava Metzia is the place to go if you are looking for premium ayin hara content. Uh, b'li ayin hara, of course. Uh, Bava Metzia one eighteen A says, "Chatas etzeteva kamash m'lan," that it is generally speaking good advice, that it is good advice to avoid ayin hara. "Deveilay et ishili zduheimei en bisha," that Yehoshua warned people as good advice that he should-- Yehoshua, the, uh, successor of Moshe Rabbeinu. He warned people as good advice that it'd be a good idea to avoid ayin hara. "Ein dekamah leYehoshua." This is what Yehoshua said to the people. "Dechsiv," he said to them in the verse, "Ve'imra lehem Yehoshua, im am rab atta, alu lecha ya'ara." Yehoshua advised people that if there's going to be a lot of them, they should get into the land. They should sneak around through forests because, "Amar lehu, lechu yeichimu atzmechem beya'ar, in sh'litishut bechem ayin hara." Yehoshua was giving them advice that if people see an enormous group of people walking toward them, they will cast ayin hara upon them. This causes ayin hara when a bunch of people are together, evil eye. And because this casts ayin hara, it would make sense to hide in the forest. The reason why I'm showing you this Gemara is not in order to encourage those of you who travel in groups to hide in forests, but to demonstrate that the Gemara itself

03:12 Speaker 1 seems to say that this is good advice, that good standard advice is to-- that's the language used here. It's etzeteva. It's good standard advice is to do certain things to avoid ayin hara. So this is not empty superstition. This is something the Gemara takes pretty seriously. And lest you tell me that this is something that Aggadah and Kabbalah takes, uh, very seriously, but not, you know, nigla and Halakha, that would be very, very incorrect. There are multiple Halakhas that are tied to the very real concern of ayin hara. If we didn't take it seriously, there would be several dinim that we simply would not have. The most shocking of all of them is actually in the regular Shulchan Aruch as well, but I brought Shulchan Aruch Harav because this is an Igeris share and by extension should have Chassidus in it, you know. So Shulchan Aruch Harav from the Alter Rebbe in this Gmar, entry number eleven, that would be siman yud as-- sif Yud Aleph, excuse me. "Asur lamed a stei chaveire deestaka b'vishash yami edis bekamis, bekamisah." A person is not allowed to stare at a person's field when, uh, when the, uh, when the crops are coming up. You're not allowed to stare at a person's field. "Sh'lo yizeh ke'nebi ayin ra," because if you do this, if you stare at a person's field while their field is growing, you will cause ayin hara. So it's actually considered a kind of monetary damage to stare at a person's field because you can

04:12 Speaker 1 transmit evil eye to their field. And then the Alter Rebbe continues, "Ve'ein saruch lemeshasa leestaka b'chaveira b'ninshia shel halakha she'yaze kinabi ayin ra." Certainly, it's-- it, it goes without saying, says the Alter Rebbe, that it's forbidden to look at a person, to look at your fellow person in a way that could cause concern of ayin hara. So staring at people and trying to transmit evil eye toward them is something that is asur and considered a kind of damage. "Vi api halakha." In Jewish law, consider it a kind of damage to a field, a kind of damage to a person to stare at them a certain way. So evil eye is quite literal. It involves staring with the actual eyes in a negative manner. I have a couple other highlights on the screen here of just places in Shulchan Aruch where we take the idea of ayin hara seriously. In Shulchan Aruch, Aruch, in Shulchan Aruch, Arachaim, that's one forty-one six, says there that we don't allow relatives, two relatives to have an aliyah one after another because we're concerned about ayin hara. The, uh, reason why we're not allowed to have a chuppah for two chasanim, two, uh, two, um, couples aren't allowed to have a wedding and the, uh, chuppah at the exact same time in the same place is because of Shulchan Aruch Eben Ha'ezer sixty-two three says that's because of ayin hara. That's a Rama, I believe. And, uh, the Taz in Yoreh Deah two sixty-five eleven says the reason why you're

05:13 Speaker 1 not allowed to have a bris mila for two boys at once on the-- at the same time on the same day i-in the same place, same time, same day, is because of a concern of ayin hara. So we have several Halakhas that actually, uh, assume the existence of ayin hara, and I wanted you to have this context because when we look at these letters together, uh, the Rebbe is not able to just push away ayin hara as something that is silly nonsense you don't have to worry about because it's not silly nonsense we don't have to worry about. It's got some pretty serious Gemaras behind it, a Shulchan Aruch behind it. So let's see how the Rebbe handles people who are concerned about ayin hara. Without further ado, we are ready to begin our letters. The first letter I want to show you is the most foundational of all of them. If you ca-- If you get nothing from any of these letters besides this one, I think this would be the one to take home because in this one tiny letter, he actually captures, I think, his entire shiur that based on what I've been able to find from the fifteen or so letters that we looked at plus the seforas. So, uh, this is li-- this letter is labeled daled shin samech gimel. It's from the twenty-first day of Iyar, of Tav Shin Tes Zayin, and the Rebbe writes, "Shalom u-bracha." So the Rebbe starts off You wrote to me about somebody who's

06:14 Speaker 1 very concerned about Ayin Hara, who's very concerned about evil eye. In these sorts of things, and that's a very important lashon because that's the Rebbe telling us in these sorts of instances, this isn't the Rebbe saying, in this particular case, act as I'm about to say. This is the Rebbe telling us, generally speaking, here's the standard guidance. So for somebody concerned about Ayin Hara, here is the standard guidance. When somebody doesn't pay attention to it at all and they remove, remove their mind from it completely, they are able to get rid of it completely. So you can defeat Ayin Hara by just not thinking about it and by not paying attention to it at all. But then the Rebbe says, but since you did mention it in your letter, you should check your tefillin and you should check the mezuzahs. And his wife, she should live well, uh, should keep or should hold on to the strong minhag of daughters of Israel, that the kosher minhag of daughters of Israel or daughters of Israel are kosher, that they separate tzedakah before they, that they give some coins to tzedakah before they light candles on Erev Shabbos and Erev Yom Tov. So, uh, the reason why I think this is so interesting is what the Rebbe is saying in the first half of this letter is, number one, if you don't think about it, if you don't take it seriously, it can't hurt you. But number two, by the fact that you wrote to me about

07:29 Speaker 1 it, that shows you're taking it pretty seriously. So this is his lashon, since you have mentioned Ayin Hara in your letter, that shows you did take it seriously, and now we're going to have to do something about it. So whereas in the other cases of superstition that we saw in previous letters or anxieties, concerns that obviously had no substance to them whatsoever, uh, the Rebbe told people, "Stop thinking about it and it goes away." Here, the Rebbe tells people, "If you hadn't thought about it, you could have prevented it. Now that you've thought about it, we do have to take some corrective action, and that corrective action to protect you from the Ayin Hara that you thought about and therefore allowed yourself to become susceptible to is fixed through checking your tefillin, checking your mezuzahs, giving tzedakah before you light Shabbos candles." Uh, this has nothing to do with our topic, but I will bring it up because it's at the bottom of the letter and noteworthy, I think. This person apparently wanted to put together-- there's a PS where, uh, always look at the PSs on the letters. Best place to look in Ignis. Uh, the, all the action happens in the PS. This is just a fun PS. Um, I don't know how fun it is. It's fun for me. Uh, the, uh, somebody-- the, the person who wrote to the Rebbe clearly was, uh, was interested in putting together a tombstone for somebody, a matzeva, that had, uh, uh, not engraved, but

08:30 Speaker 1 I guess embossed letters, letters that push out. I forget what the word is for that, but letters that push out instead of letters that are engraved in. So, uh, he wanted to do this, and the Rebbe writes back, "I'm shocked that you would wanna do such a thing because, uh, because it's well known that this is something that causes people to forget, that if you read a, uh, if you read a headstone and the letters are pushed out rather than engraved in, this is something that there's a segula, I guess an opp-opposite of a segula, whatever the opposite of a segula is, that when you read the writing on such a headstone, it causes people to forget things." And furthermore, the Rebbe says, "I don't see why you would change from what everybody else does in the cemetery, what is the regular Jewish custom. So make sure that the person puts the letters engraved." I've noticed in many cemeteries, many Jewish cemeteries, that a lot of Jewish cemeteries have headstones with letters that push out instead of letters that are carved in. And, uh, it's clearly against the Minhag Yisrael for many, many years. It's also something that can cause forgetfulness. And I have finally found a letter from the Rebbe where he really does call out this practice and say, "I don't know why you would do this. Uh, make sure that your letters are engraved." That is not a topic for us today, but I figured as long as we're here, let's not

09:25 Speaker 1 skip the letter. Let's go on to the next letter. In the next letter, the Rebbe puts a finer point on this idea. He said up here that, uh, in our previous letter, that if you don't think about Ayin Hara, if you have pesach das and you don't think about it, you don't take it seriously, it can't harm you. The Rebbe's not allowed to just make that up. He can't just say, "Well, if you, if you don't think about it," there's a Gemara. The Gemara says over here that this is something that kills people. It's very, very dangerous. Not thinking about dangerous things don't make them go away. And here the Rebbe explains himself, explains why not thinking about Ayin Hara is a cure for Ayin Hara. It's an expression you might have heard before. Let's read it. Inside, this is Beis Shin Tadik-- Shin Tadik Vav is the label on the letter. That's Beis Shin Tadik Vav. Yes, Zayin Shvat of Tav Shin Yud Daled, and the Rebbe writes, "You wrote that you're worried about people having-- about, about Ayin Hara affecting you, about evil eye affecting you." This is already, the Rebbe says, the second time you've mentioned this to me, so clearly this is a real concern. I already have written to you that somebody who is not makpid about this, he cannot be makpidid about this. Somebody who doesn't care about this, it can't harm him. Specifically in these regards. The Rebbe's saying something very interesting here. He's saying that, uh, Chazal

10:37 Speaker 1 said that certain things shouldn't happen on Sundays. And by telling us that we shouldn't engage in certain activities on Sundays, they are implicitly telling us that if it wasn't for that idea of Chazal that it shouldn't happen on Sunday, that there's no standard Ayin Hara associated with these particular days. In any event, it seems like the implication here is that this person was afraid to get married on a Sunday. In any ca-- in any event, the Rebbe, the Rebbe says, uh, you should increase your simcha in its proper time, and gives them a bracha for their wedding. Uh, the reason why I want you to see this is 'cause of the lashon, somebody who's not, uh, careful about this, they don't have to be careful about this, or the, the, the world can't push back on them in that way. They can't have-- Ayin Hara can't affect somebody who doesn't care. That's actually not a lashon that is associated with Ayin Hara. That's not a, uh-- We, we always say it. You might have heard growing up that if you don't worry about Ayin Hara, it can't hurt you. It's not just the Rebbe's idea. It's an old idea. It's all over the place. But, uh, it does not have anything to do with Ayin Hara and its primary source. The primary source for that expression, comes from Pesachim. And in Gemara Pesachim, it says that somebody who's not worried about zugos, a different kind of authentic Jewish, um, superstition is the wrong word because

11:38 Speaker 1 these things are real, that, uh, the Gemara talks about the dangers of doing things in pairs. And then the Gemara concludes by saying, "You don't have to worry about doing things in pairs. If you don't worry about it, it can't harm you to do things in pairs." Uh, it seems the Rebbe, and he's not the only one. Rav Moshe does this in, uh, in one of the Negros Moshe. Uh, I believe the Abiya Amud does it too. There are a lot of sources, uh, that say that this should be applied not just to zugos, but also to Ayin Hara. So the Rebbe is clearly applying this to Ayin Hara. That's clearly the Rebbe's position that, uh, that we can use this Gemara Pesachim that says that if you don't worry about superstitions, they can't harm you, to extend this to include Ayin Hara. So what we've gained so far, although I think it's gotten a little technical, unfortunately, what we've gained so far is that the Rebbe's position absolutely is that Ayin Hara cannot harm you. Evil eye cannot harm you if you're not worried about it, but also that if you are worried about it, you're going to have to do certain things to protect yourself from it because it is a very legitimate threat. So the Rebbe's telling people, once you're worried about it, first of all, stop, and second of all, here's some corrective action. I'll show you one more corrective action. This one is, uh, is Very heartening because here the

12:36 Speaker 1 Rebbe says that you're completely safe if you do it. This is a letter that I was unable to find in regular Igris. This is printed in the Heichal Menachem, volume two. Maybe they haven't printed it. Oh yeah, they haven't printed it yet. It's Tuv Shin Nun. So this is in the Heichal Menachem, volume two. You'll find this on page eighty-nine in that book. It is a letter from Zion Kislev of Tuv Shin Nun. And the Rebbe writes, uh, that he's received your bracha and the pan, and, uh, he says he's gonna read it by the tzayan, and then he says this, "B'ma mazuzas k'sheres ve'kan hagi yemis, i afshar klal, shil shliba ayin hara." So the Rebbe says here that if your mezuzahs are kosher, and if you are the ikker being, that you live your life like a Jew every single day the way you're supposed to, it is impossible, i afshar klal, it is entirely impossible that ayin hara can have any effect on you. So this would seem to be a, uh, complete cure, a complete prevention of ayin hara, whether you take it seriously or not. If you don't take it seriously, it can't harm you. Even if you take ayin hara seriously and you worry about it, you should know if your mezuzahs are kosher and if you live your life properly the way that you're supposed to every single day, then i afshar klal, shil shliba ayin hara. It's impossible that ayin hara can harm a person under those

13:35 Speaker 1 circumstances. And with that, I wanna show you a couple English letters that are similar to this, and then we'll go back, and I'll show you some sefas. But, uh, there's, uh, this Rebbe letter app that is on the screen. You should be able to see it, although the print will be a little small. The Rebbe letter app, they like to sort things by topic. And fortunately, they did find three English letters on evil eye and put them in their own topic. We're not gonna read all of these letters, uh, at least not in their entirety. This letter is from three Nissan of fifty-seven seventeen. And here the Rebbe writes, "With regards to the anxieties of Bobby." I hope you guys can see. I know it's small. I don't think I can make it bigger. Let me try. Nope, can't make it bigger. Uh, with regards to the anxieties of Bobby-- Oh, no. What did I do? I pressed the wrong button. We're coming back. Okay. "With regard to the anxieties of Bobby," I don't know who Bobby is, "over what you describe as three evils, one of which is an evil eye," these are the Rebbe's words that I'm reading in English, "it would be advisable to have the mezuzoth of her home checked and let her begin every weekday by setting aside a couple cents for tzedakah, in addition to her tzedakah before lighting the candles. Let her stop thinking about an evil eye, and if she will not attach importance to it, it

14:33 Speaker 1 will have no effect on her. The other two evils that you write to me about are not clear, and perhaps next time you could state them more clearly." So here, the Rebbe is once again saying what we saw in previous letters, just in a slightly different order. Somebody is clearly bothered by evil eye. They're bothered by concerns of ayin hara. So the Rebbe says, "Check your mezuzahs." We saw in one of our previous letters that somebody who has kosher mezuzahs cannot be harmed by the evil eye. The Rebbe told her to set aside a couple cents for tzedakah before lighting candles and during the week, advice that we saw in one of our earlier letters. And finally, stop thinking about it because if you don't at-attach importance to it, it will have no effect on you. That's mandale cuppedale cuptinum, uh, as we saw in previous letters. This is a nice summary of everything in English, uh, to somebody else concerned. We have a letter from seven ER of fifty-seven thirty-seven, and the Rebbe writes, this is again a letter in English, and the Rebbe writes, "Blessing and greeting." There is a top line, but if you look in the PS, "Since writing," the Rebbe writes, this part's the Rebbe speaking in English, "PS, since writing the above letter, your letter of April twenty-sixth was received, in which you write about an ayin hara. It is explained in our Torah, called Torah Shebech and Torah Shebes, because it is our guide in life and all

15:34 Speaker 1 its teachings are true, that when a Jew conducts his daily life in accordance with God's will, as set forth in the Shulchan Aruch, thus keeping wide open the channels to receive God's blessings, then there is no room for fear or anxiety, as is frequently stated in our holy scriptures, such as, 'God is with me, I shall not fear. He sends his angels to guide you in all ways,' and many others in this vein. If you had not-- If you have not had your mezuzoth recent-- checked recently, it would be well to have them checked to make sure they are kosher and properly affixed." Once again, we're seeing the same themes. We're seeing that if somebody conducts their daily life the way they are supposed to, they don't have to worry about ayin hara. We're seeing if their mezuzahs are kosher, they don't have to worry about ayin hara. And this is very much reflected in this other letter that we saw over here that told us this most recent Hebrew letter that told us if your mezuzahs are kosher and if you live your life daily the way you're supposed to, it is impossible that ayin hara can harm you. One more of the English letters. This is from eighth Cheshvan of fifty-seven thirteen. It's a long letter. We are only going to read one little line of it. I hope you can see my mouse. It's this one over here, I believe. Uh, where is it? Here. Uh, "With regard to your item number

16:29 Speaker 1 one, in which you complain about lack of good health, it is la-- no doubt largely due to a state of nervousness and depression you are in. I'm sure that if you will try to correct this, which depends entirely on you, you will also find considerable improvement in your health, and you will also be able to respond much better to the treatment-- to the treatments which specialists give you." So when it comes to general nervousness and depression, the Rebbe says you should, uh, find a way to snap out of it. "The same applies to items number two, three, and four. Develop a more optimistic view on life. It will give you a more cheerful disposition. Your job will not appear so difficult and tedious, and you will not feel unhappy about it. This will also help you get to your su-- to, to your suitable match in due course." So the Rebbe's telling this person that's entirely dependent on them, their mood, their health, everything. Now, "With regard to item number five, concerning ayin hara," that's evil eye, "the best thing is to dismiss it from your mind and give a few extra cents-- a few cents every morning to tzedakah before the prayer of Shema." So here, once again, the Rebbe's advice is tzedakah and getting it out of your mind. Returning to our regular Hebrew schedule, those are our English letters, so just returning to our regular Hebrew here, I have a couple interesting things to show you that I thought we'd end off

17:27 Speaker 1 with. Uh, number one, this is Sicha. Uh, it's printed in Toras Menachem, volume one at the very beginning. I believe this is from Tuv Shin Yud. Yeah, this is Resh Kodesh seven Tuv Shin Yud. So this is technically before the Rebbe was Mekubal in Hasidus, before the Rebbe accepted the mantle of leadership. And, uh, the Rebbe talks about somebody who is involved in Esrogan. So he's, uh, I'll read to you. "Kak haya ne, kavod v'zchus merim amara. Esrogan bishvil haRav, haya me-- uh, haRebbe, excuse me, haya meivi Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson." So Yisroel Jacobson had the job of bringing an Esrog to the Friediker Rebbe. And then the Rebbe puts in, uh, brackets, the Rebbe says sort of as an aside, "Achshav, ein zeh bigeress sayod." Says, "Nowadays, that's no secret." Apparently, at one point, it was a secret that Rabbi Jacobson was the one supplying the Friediker Rebbe with Esrogim. So the Rebbe says, "Now this is not a secret. V'avad lehi tishlib et ayin hara," and I'm not worried that the evil eye will rest on Rabbi Jacobson because I'm mentioning that he's the one who had the great merit of bringing Esrogim to the Rebbe, "biglal hasheches l'Rebbe," because of his particular connection to the Rebbe, "v'lashon chazal, ana bezariti yesev kasin v'lo yishaldah be'ein haBisha." Uh, in Chazal, there's a Gemara, it's in Brachos on Chaf, on Daf Chaf, uh, s- at the end of Even Alef. Says there in Maseches Brachos, I believe it's Rabbi Yechonan, although I don't have it

18:29 Speaker 1 in front of me, says that, uh, he is une-- he is not, uh, he's immune, he's impervious to ayin hara. He's somebody who cannot be affected by the evil eye because he's a direct descendant of Yeseh Batarach. And anybody who's a direct descendant of Yeseh Batarach is unable to have ayin hara attached to them because Yeseh was above ayin hara. So the Rebbe says, based on this lashon chazal, that anybody who is a direct descendant of Yeseh is unable to be affected by ayin hara, me-- uh, um- Excuse me. Uh, oh, he doesn't end the idea here, but he ended the idea above, and I just read it funny. Let me read it again one more time so that it reads more clearly. Says here that the Ɣsreygen that were, that were brought, were brought by Yisroel Jacobson, and this is not a secret, and I'm not worried Ayin Hara will affect him because he's connected to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe's name is, of course, uh, the Friediker Rebbe's name is Yosef, Yitzchak's name is Yosef. And since Rabbi Jacobson is connected to the Rebbe, uh, the Friediker Rebbe, whose name is Yosef, he's unable to be affected by Ayin Hara. Um, that was explained very poorly on my part, so allow me to summarize outside. What he's saying here is that anybody connected to the Friediker Rebbe, whose name is Yosef, anybody living in the generation defined as the Friediker Rebbe's generation, is defined as somebody who is one of the children, one

19:31 Speaker 1 of the descendants of Yosef. And since we have a tradition from the Gemara that nobody who is a descendant of Yosef can be negatively impacted by Ayin Hara, they can't be harmed by the evil eye, this demonstrates that anybody who is connected to the Friediker Rebbe cannot be harmed by Ayin Hara. The Rebbe expands this considerably later on. This is a sicha that's printed in Terias Menachem, Tuv Shin Mem Daled, volume one. I'm saying it that way because they haven't reprinted the volumes yet for Tuv Shin Mem Daled, and this is on page four eighty-three. This is-- also exists more or less as a sicha, and there are some things in the... Uh, excuse me, as like a sicha in Likkutei Sichos. It's an edited sicha, which I also have on your screen. That's in Likkutei Sichos, volume twenty-five, page twenty-five. I'm gonna show you lines from both because there are some things in one that are not in the other and some things in the other that are not in one, and I wanna get everything. In any event, let's read it. The sicha that is in Terias Menachem, Tuv Shin Mem Daled, that would be nineteen eighty-four, the Rebbe says up here, uh, "Hinei, kol hamar leila nizkir kasdav meshiach nuche le dereinu." Everything we talked about, about the special blessing that fish have, that fish are not susceptible, they're immune to Ayin Hara, applies to our generation specifically. In it-- So first of all, the Rebbe is saying that our generation is

20:34 Speaker 1 immune to Ayin Hara, but let's see how. "Inu na, this entire idea, dagim sheraba'am mechasnim heim, ein ayin hara sholeis bahem." Since fish are covered by the ocean, they are not susceptible to Ayin Hara. "Muvak m'rabbi Akeshah livi rebbi Yechanan." Ah, it was Rabbi Yechanan. Ten points over here. "Ana mezara d'Yosef kasinan d'lay shalta b'ein habisha." Rabbi Y-Yechanan said that he is a s-- he is a descendant, a direct descendant of Yosef, and therefore, he is not susceptible to Ayin Hara. "Sha, rayah lakach ki ma shenama vivkil l'Rebbe kel al ha'aretz. Madagim sheraba'am mechasnim heim, ein ayin hara sholeis bahem, af zeh rash Yosef sh'lahem nitna brachos vivkil l'Rebbe kel al ha'aretz, ein ayin hara sholeis bahem." Okay, so he's just bringing the proof up. "Piza muba, hakash m'yuchad l'dereinu zeh." Now we can understand our connection to this generation, this connection, the connection to our generation. "B'kever sh'nasi sh'nasi dereinu sh'mei Yosef arei bas ureish gufa azu." Since the nasi of the generation is named Yosef, the Friediker Rebbe's name, therefore, after the head follows the entire body. And the Rebbe says, "Hey ram ikhola mar le'il b'negei lapel." If you wanna know what that practically means, that we live in a generation that is immune to Ayin Hara because it is under the leadership of a nasi whose name is Yosef. The Rebbe says, if you'd like to know what it looks like to live a, to live a life where you are not susceptible to Ayin Hara, here's what it looks like.

21:39 Speaker 1 "Kash y'tevu sheha'avodati ha'evet sh'lamal midida v'albala." We are sometimes asked, it's demanded of us, that our avoda should be above any particular, uh, limitations. "Nesina tzedaka lamal midida v'albala." That is, we're going to give-- We're, we're being asked to give tzedaka far beyond the capacity of normal people. "Hafatzat hamayanot lamal midida v'albala." To spread chassidis in a way that is far beyond the norm. "Hey keitz, v'hey keitz m'zakan ha'avod ruach," and anything else like that, and that's, you know, just saying outside, that is, uh, that is what the Rebbe demands of us constantly, to do things that are entirely out of the ordinary, to have out of the ordinary avodas Israel, out of the ordinary tzedaka, out of the ordinary spreading of chassidis. So, "Ein malefach l'chasheshein meein habisha." Somebody could think that when you do something out of the ordinary, you draw attention to yourself, and you might become susceptible, God forbid, to the Ayin Hara. So the Rebbe says, "Ein malefach l'chasheshein meein bisha." You don't have to worry about Ayin Hara. You don't have to worry about the evil eye, even though I'm asking you to do activities that are very, uh, I guess, evil eye susceptible. "Ma yemru reim bolashon hakaz lamasisru ou ki ana mezara d'Yosef kasinan d'lay shalta b'ein habisha." The Rebbe says, we should tell back, we should tell people, "Don't worry. We are the descendants, we are the children of Yosef. We are the, uh, we are the chassidim of our Rebbe, and we are protected from

22:40 Speaker 1 Ayin Hara, and therefore, we're going to go out there and make a, uh, make a shtum and not worry about what's going to happen from, uh, people looking at us funny because we do it." So the Rebbe in the sicha strongly encourages people to be very loud and proud about the Yiddishkeit and specifically about spreading Yiddishkeit and fulfilling the herut and the, uh, mitzvot of the Rebbe without concern of Ayin Hara because we are the descendants of Yosef, and we're protected from Ayin Hara. There is, uh, in the, in Likkutei Sichos, where, of course, this is the edited version, the Rebbe says very much the same thing, but near the end, he adds something that I didn't find in the original sicha. Uh, he says here that regarding the herut hapel, regarding the actual herut when it comes to spreading the mayanot, so spreading out the wellsprings of chassidis, we should do this in a big way, specifically the mayanot in Bal Shem Tov. And then here, uh, this is the part that I wanted to show you. Where is it? Uh, down here. And when a person does this in a way of bittul, that is, beisit bakun, that is that they are bittul to a Rebbe and that they are completely, uh, uh, batal. I'm not gonna translate batal. The translation of bittul is bittul. But when somebody is, uh, batal to the Rebbe and they're completely connected to the Rebbe, then it's impossible they could have any concern of Ayin Hara, al

23:42 Speaker 1 achas kama, regarding other sorts of difficulties. So whereas he told us here that just because you're living in the generation of the Friediker Rebbe, you're automatically defen-- protected to some degree from Ayin Hara, he adds here that an additional protection from Ayin Hara is his kashrus itself. Being connected to the Rebbe connects you-- Excuse me, connects you. Being connected to the Rebbe protects you from Ayin Hara. Okay, let's do a quick summary. So, uh, today we saw that, um, Ayin Hara, unlike other superstitions, has a real basis in authentic Yiddishkeit. We saw Gemara in Bava Metzia that named Ayin Hara as a major cause of death. We saw another telling us that avoiding Ayin Hara is standard good advice, uh, from Yeshua. We also saw that al pi halacha, we have Jewish legal implications for Ayin Hara. Uh, people sh-should stop staring at us. Uh, they should, uh, not get aliyot back to back. Relatives shouldn't get aliyot back to back, et cetera. Against that backdrop, the Rebbe answers people who are legitimately concerned about what appears to be a legitimate concern. And the Rebbe's overarching answer is that the best cure for Ayin Hara is preventative. Don't worry about it, and it can't get you. We saw that earlier. Uh, but in recognition of the fact that by the time you've written to the Rebbe about your Ayin Hara concerns, clearly you are worried about it, it can get you. So the Rebbe has some suggestions. Uh, mezuzah is a really big one that

24:48 Speaker 1 shows up again and again. Tzedakah shows up again and again. We had about mezuzah and about living your daily life like a Jew, that a person who does that cannot be harmed by Ayin Hara. We have a general performance of mitzvahs, and we ended off then, uh, after seeing all that, we ended off with some sichas. And the sicha showed us that hiskashrus to the Rebbe, connecting ourselves to the Rebbe and being in the Rebbe's generation and doing what the Rebbe wants us to do prevents Ayin Hara perhaps better than anything else. We are effectively an entire generation that is ale ayin, uh, or ale ayin, that is, uh, entirely immuneto the evil eye. In any event, that's our discussion of Ayin Hara. Thank you all very much. Quick, quick story. Please. Okay. In Bnei Brak, so the previous generation, and I learned there fifty years ago, so the generation before, so they were very much into these Ayin Haras and Taamos Koloms and Natavas Koloms. And so there's one particular individual who was very worried about Ayin Hara, and he had to get a new refrigerator. So he ordered, and he's actually paid extra for it to get delivered at two o'clock in the morning. Now, anybody who's ever been in Bnei Brak, so they have these big, giant wooden do-doors, like the size probably like Shimshon was carrying back in wherever it was. And this truck pulling into the, well, the the courtyard of the yeshiva, and the dormitory is all over

25:59 Speaker 1 there. So the whole yeshiva woke up to this truck pulling in to deliver this, uh, fridge, so nobody should know about it, so there shouldn't be any Ayin Hara, which is reminiscent of the work they say about there was a Nishka Fesis, I don't wanna use a, a negative term, that when he, uh, he was worried about Shabbos, he had to-- when he had to be mashkin, so it should be a problem, mash-mashmia of a coil, so he would put cotton into the, uh, toilet. There shouldn't be mashmia of coil. But even though he's worried about it, there shouldn't be mashmia of coil, nevertheless, the whole town heard about it. One last part. Rabbi, Rabbi Jacobson, because he was a, a so he was also involved in so he was told by the other Rabbonim that he cannot participate in the inters during the time of, I can't remember what they say, from, um, ov or something like that, until well after Kisle because the, uh, Se-uh, Sefer, maybe Astrik Sefer doesn't necessarily have such a, um, such a, uh, what's the word? A chazakah of being, uh, believable. Uh. I will add something that I just forgot to say, which is that while going through these sichas, especially doing my Etzer Hakochma search, trying to find times the Rebbe talked about Ayin Hara, if you search Ayin Hara through the Rebbe's work, you, you get a lot of Bli Ayin Haras. So, uh, just- Yeah, I- The Rebbe repeatedly says that, you know, "Don't--

27:21 Speaker 1 Put it out of your mind. Don't worry about it. It can't affect you if you don't believe in it." Well-

28:05 Speaker 2 When counting though, right?

28:08 Speaker 1 Um, when counting-

28:09 Speaker 2 There's a concept of saying

28:10 Speaker 1 ... yeah, it's, it's an enormous concern by counting, that's for sure. Um, the Rebbe brings that-- The Rebbe mentions that in several sichas, that, uh, that counting, that, that, that's petekef. Um, even if you don't believe in it, you can't count people that'll cause Ayin Hara. Yeah. It seems there's a certain-- And look, Alpi Alafa, we saw earlier that, uh, you could say Bli Ayin Hara all you want. You're not allowed to have two relatives get Aliyas back to back from each other. Um, y- so, uh, y-you could say Bli Ayin Hara while you're staring at someone's field, it's still a problem. There's a lashon in the Igros Moyshe that might be the Rebbe Shick, I just don't know if it is because I didn't see it from the Rebbe. But there's a lashon in the Igros Moyshe where he says that obviously, Mandele Kapid applies, and if a person doesn't care about Ayin Hara, it can't harm them. At the same time, it can't harm them so much they should still be a little bit concerned. That seems to be the way that Moyshe feels about it, is that Ayin Hara gets like attenuated by the Kapid, but you still have to worry about it. I don't know. I don't know. It's definitely, uh, it's a subtlety. It's not the same as other anxieties and superstitions. This one has some teeth to it.

29:02 Speaker 2 Can I, uh, point out an observation?

29:04 Speaker 1 Please.

29:05 Speaker 2 You, you-- The-- I, I-- It seems like Ayin Hara and anxiety go kind of hand in hand to a certain degree, in the sense that anxiety is like the more you think about it, the more it comes onto you. So too with an Ayin Hara, it's kinda the same idea.

29:20 Speaker 1 It's an astute observation if for no other reason than that we see the same lashon by the Rebbe, by one as the other. Every time people write to the Rebbe about anxiety, you see this Chesed Hadass, and, uh, you see it also by Ayin Hara. So absolutely. Similar s-sim-similar problems with similar cures.

29:34 Speaker 2 Similar remedies, I was just gonna say. Yeah.

29:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:39 Speaker 2 Shabbat.

29:42 Speaker 1 All right. Thanks