כי תשא: כשתחפץ לקבל סכום מנינם לדעת כמה הם, אל תמנם לגלגלת, אלא יתנו כל אחד מחצית השקל, ותמנה את השקלים ותדע מניינם, ולא יהיה בהם נגף שהמנין שולט בו עין הרע (רש”י שמות ל יב).
When you want to calculate the Jewish population, don’t do a head count. Rather everyone should give half a shekel, and by counting the shekels you’ll know their population. That way there won’t be a plague – for counting people brings about ayin hara. (Rashi, Shemos 30:12)
Ayin hara is a narrow, constricted outlook or approach. Hence Chazal describe one who gives stingily as giving with ayin ra’ah. Every Jew is a world unto himself. Counting Jews directly compresses them all into one anonymous number, melting away each individual’s uniqueness. That severely limited view is ayin hara.
The parasha’s opening words ‘Ki Sisa’ literally mean when you lift or carry. Counting Jews compresses all their unique personalities into one neat number, like a well-packed package that’s easy to pick up and transport. So too when we label another Jew, we reduce all his complexity to one convenient, simplified description we can carry with us.
Ayin tovah, on the other hand, means a broad, expansive view. When we look at another person with ayin tovah, we recognize there’s much more to him than meets the eye.
We want everything and everyone to be conveniently superficial, like a neat package. We sum up other people with one sweeping label, cram a person’s whole personality into one word. We have to recognize that the other person is far more complex and intriguing than we know. If we do that, we’ll begin to discover new aspects and greater depth in their personality.
We also need to view ourselves with ayin tovah. We often give so much weight to one of our middos that we think it’s the sum total of our personality. Or we let one thing we did, positive or negative, paint the whole portrait of our lives. We have to view ourselves more broadly, and appreciate our own complexity.
When we look at others, or at ourselves, let’s do our best to remember that good spiritual vision doesn’t just mean seeing better – it means seeing more.