Remedy for an Evil Eye

The evil eye, also known in Hebrew as the ayin hara, is usually seen as a mysterious external force, lurking around, waiting to pounce on innocent victims. Some of us are familiar with phrases such as bli ayin hara or k'nayna hara, which are said in an attempt to ward off the influence of the evil eye. Other protective measures against the evil eye include the wearing of special amulets or visits to those who perform various practices using oil, mercury or eggs in an attempt to shatter the effects of the evil eye. On the other hand, many of us understandably relegate any discussion about the evil eye to superstition and irrationality. However, there is another dimension to the story of the evil eye, which can dramatically transform our relationship to others and the world in general.

The evil eye is synonymous with greediness, not being satisfied with one's portion, jealousy and begrudging others their good fortune. Someone who has an evil eye possesses these attributes as part of their personality. These characteristics can be manifested in a person quite openly, or sometimes in a much more hidden and subtle way. The potential damaging influence arises when someone who harbors these types of feelings against us, looks upon us, or our good fortune, including our children and our possessions. The negative force only has power over that which can actually be seen by the physical eye. This is one of the reasons that it can actually be a blessing to not be so noticeable in the public eye.

But wait... before you start glancing nervously over your shoulder, let's turn this entire idea upside down. Rebbe Nachman writes that we have to pray a lot in order to be saved from the evil eye [Likutey Moharan 54]. Which evil eye? Our own evil eye! Here is the secret principle: The evil eye only has power over us to the extent that we ourselves have the evil eye. According to Rebbe Nachman, there are two types of evil eye. The first type of evil eye is when we see our friend enjoy some elevation or greatness and wish it wasn't so. The second type is when we have an evil or begrudging eye towards anything else about our friend. The remedy for this potentially harmful situation is to develop a good eye, an ayin tova, towards everyone. This means sincerely wishing the best for them at all times, and being genuinely happy for their success.

Rebbe Nachman does point out that one also needs to pray a great deal in order to be saved from the evil eye of another, yet the primary responsibility for avoiding the evil eye lies with ourselves. If we feel that we don't have the strength to withstand the evil eye of someone else, for whatever reason, we should stay clear of that person until we have strengthened the power of our own good eye. 

Rebbe Nachman also teaches another benefit to a good eye: By finding merit, in even a wicked person, one is saved from the evil eye. This means not engaging at all in the negativity of another who wishes you harm. Respond only positively and pleasantly, emphasizing the good point that can be found in anyone or any situation. Respond to a curse with a blessing, no matter what! Then, the bad has absolutely nothing to grab and hold onto. This brings good into the world, subduing and eventually eliminating the bad completely.

Some of us may still insist on using amulets and other practices aimed at breaking the influence of someone else's evil eye upon us, but we need to be aware that, at best, the relief will only be temporary if we don't develop the power of our own good eye. By developing the power of our good eye through a little effort and revision of our habitual responses, we can shift our whole outlook towards the world and those around us. We have the ability to be channels for good to flow into the world; it all depends upon our desire. Not only can we wish good for others, but we can actually pray to God that the entire Creation itself be successful [Rav Ephraim Kenig]. In this way, we are restored as partners with God to repair and heal the world.

Source: BreslevTsfat
Also see: The Power of Vision

Three Wishes

 

In the Shaar HaKavonos of the Arizal it says that when the Chazzan lingers on the word "Ayei" Mikom Kivodo in Kedusha of Musaf you can have in mind one of three wishes that will be granted. Either you can ask for Ruach HaKodesh, great wealth, or children who are tzaddikim. 

The Arizal cautions that you can only ask for one and not all three so you must choose carefully. Rav Shimshon Pincus gives advice to those who are stumped by the dilemma. First of all he says do not spend you precious request asking for Ruach HaKodesh. Even if you were granted Ruach HaKodesh, since we are not worthy enough it would not settle on us, much like if someone were to pour a gallon of Cola into a 5 ounce cup. It is pointless. 

Children or Money? That is up to you. What did Rav Pincus choose? He used to tell his kids, "Please be good, I gave up a great fortune for you!"

Source: Revach L'Neshama

Murderer of Rabbi Elazar Abu Hatzira zt"l in Torah Codes

Rabbi Glazerson shows the Torah code where the name of the murderer of Rabbi Elazar Abu Hatzira - Asher Dahan - appears, and the evil forces which are influencing so many murders in our times.

The Limitations of Black Magic

By: Rabbi Eliyahu Haim Aboud

Probably the greatest sorcerer of all time was the evil prophet Bilaam, who, as the Torah relates, attempted to place a curse on the Jewish people and have them annihilated. The commentaries explain [Ramban in Parashat Balak chapter 22:31] that Bilaam’s extraordinary powers stemmed from his mastery of sorcery and black magic, and not from his abilities as a prophet. In fact, he was not worthy of prophecy at all, and was given prophetic capabilities only for a very brief period. This is why in the Prophets he is referred to as “Bilaam Hakosem–Bilaam the Sorcerer,” with no mention of his prophetic status. According to the Midrash  Bilaam and his two sons were originally the most prestigious advisors and sorcerers of Pharaoh during the period of Bene Yisrael’s enslavement. And many other stories abound of ancient nations who enlisted Bilaam to reveal to them the outcome of their battles and to help them win through his extraordinary mystical powers.

Bilaam acquired his great powers of sorcery directly from the evil angels Aza and Azael. Bilaam visited these two angels every day until he learned all the mystical secrets they knew.

Some sources identify Bilaam with Lavan, Yaakov’s crooked father-in-law, who sought to destroy Yaakov and prevent the emergence of the Jewish people. According to this tradition, Bilaam lived well over 300 years.

Bilaam was killed by Bene Yisrael during the battle of Midyan prior to their entering the land of Israel. The Midrash relates that when the Jews captured Bilaam, he used sorcery to raise himself and the five kings of Midyan high in the air and disappear from sight. (Though the powers of impurity can only be summoned while standing on the ground, once the sorcery is initiated, the subject could use the powers to levitate off the ground for a period of time.) Pinhas, the grandson of Aharon, flew after him by uttering the divine name or, according to others, by directing the name of Hashem written on the tzitz (frontlet) of the kohen gadol towards the airborne Midyanites counteracting Bilaam’s powers of magic. Bilaam and the kings immediately fell to the ground and were then easily killed by Bene Yisrael. Bilaam’s decaying body and tarnished soul transformed into evil spirits, snakes and scorpions, the result of the impurity with which they had been saturated during his lifetime.


Limited Time Span
The commentaries add that objects created by the powers of sorcery cannot remain in existence permanently. These creations can exist for only limited periods of time, after which the laws of nature take hold and return them to their original state. This is why the frogs that descended upon Egypt during the second plague remained in the Nile River after the plague, and did not just disappear. Gd demonstrated to Pharaoh and the Egyptians that His creations can exist indefinitely, as opposed to the creations of magic, which are only temporary.

Sorcery is also subject to limited accessibility. The Zohar writes that the forces of impurity are unable to perform magic from hassot (midnight) at night until midday, whereas Hashem, of course, can overturn the natural order he created anytime He wishes.

Additionally, someone born during the month of Adar II, on a leap year, cannot be affected by magic. This is because he is born in a month which doesn’t have a specific mazal and “doesn’t really exist”. Therefore the magicians have no way of dealing with him. In this vein, when Yehoshua gathered an army to fight Amalek, who came to fight Beneh Yisrael using witchcraft, he purposely chose people who were born in Adar II, to whom these forces take no affect.

To read the entire article click here

Superstitions and Ayin Haras

Someone told me they were going to see a rabbi in Chicago who is removing ayin haras, like this : The Scandal of Meah Shearim 

If you are still one of those people who believe that this kind of stuff works, you should listen to this shiur: by Rabbi Avi Matmon: - The Good The Bad and the Superstitious - where he also explains how to identify a Navi Sheker (false prophet).

Psychics, Telepathy, Kabbalah and Judaism

What is Practical Kabbalah?

by Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh Inner.org

There are two basic types of Kabbalah:

Kabbalah iyunit, "contemplative Kabbalah," seeks to explain the nature of God and the nature of existence via intellectual and meditative techniques.

Kabbalah ma'asit, "practical Kabbalah," seeks to alter the nature of existence and change the course of events via ritualistic techniques. Sometimes practical Kabbalah involves summoning spiritual forces, such as angels, and commanding them or causing them to swear to perform a certain act or function in reality.

Four hundred years ago, the Arizal taught that in our generations we should not be involved with, or attempt to use the methods of practical Kabbalah. As the Holy Temple is not standing, and we do not possess the ashes of the Red Heifer, we are unable to purify our bodies. The practice of practical Kabbalah by a person with an impure body is very detrimental and perversive. Thus the Arizal totally forbade the pursuit of this realm of Kabbalah.

What About People Who Claim to have Spiritual or Healing Powers?

by Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh  Inner.org

In general, if the "healer" is not a true tzaddik ("righteous one"), such as a Rebbe, the healing is always a mixture of good and evil. It is certainly possible for a person's soul to possess psychic powers. However, with the exception of a very few true tzaddikim, psychic powers are a mixture of light and darkness, at best. Often, they are completely negative. When good and bad or truth and falsehood are mixed together, the final result is usually negative. Thus if there is a mixture of good and evil, it is better to stay clear of these practices.

There were great tzaddikim, such as the Rebbes of Kamarno, that possessed psychic powers. They related that when they arrived at a certain maturity of understanding, through being involved in the truth of the Torah and Kabbalah, they understood that these psychic powers were detrimental to their own progress in the true service of God. Even though these powers were purely good, they asked God to remove them as they felt that these powers were not helping them or the world in the true service of God. They desired to serve God purely through the study and teaching of the Torah and the performance of mitzvot.

Spiritual Powers of the Non-Righteous

Although we have stated that telepathy is actually a Divine power of the righteous, we sometimes find that “normal” people profess to have similar spiritual powers. It should be clear that ninety-nine percent of these so-called “healers” and spiritual diviners etc. are nothing more than charlatans. This is true whether they deceive the public consciously or whether they themselves truly believe that they possess such powers. The whole of the book of Tanya is intended to save people from self-deception. However, there is still a minimal percentage of people who truly are capable of such divination even without having purified themselves in holiness.

The powers these people possess do not come from garbing the higher powers of the soul with the garment of thought, rather they have holes in their garments, a type of nakedness through which the light from the upper powers of the soul are manifest.

Before the primordial sin, Adam and Eve were both naked and were not embarrassed of their nakedness, however the rectification after the sin was that they must wear garments. Our sages teach us that the word levush, “clothing,” is a permutation of lo bosh, “unembarrassed,” meaning negation of the negative embarrassment that resulted from the sin.

Garments are of utmost importance, so much so that the word tikkun, “rectification,” is a synonym for levush. Through their prayers, the tzaddikim raise and purify their garments, especially the garment of thought. The pure and refined garments then rise to clothe the inner powers of the soul, which gives the tzaddik the power to act spiritual actions that normal people are unable to carry out. However, there are people whose natural garments are not refined, rather they have “holes” in their garments. They are born with a defect, just as a person may be born lacking a certain limb, God forbid. There are some limbs that are more crucial than others and a person is able to survive without that limb, contrarily, he may even develop sharper senses in another limb to overcome his disability. There are those who are born with the ability to solve dreams, for instance, with holes in the garments such that the inner light is revealed, giving him the power to act. However these are the unrectified lights of chaos and do not result from the person’s having purified his garments, therefore there is always a certain extent of self-conceit in such people.

Read the entire article on Kabbalah and Telepathy at this link: TorahScience

Paranormal Powers

The following is a reply by Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh to someone who has paranormal powers:

The most important principle to remember when considering paranormal phenomena is the one anchored in the injunction: “Be simple (tamim) with GOD your God.” This injunction appears within the context of a constellation of prohibitions pertaining to witchcraft and sorcery. Since these practices were widespread among the pagan peoples who occupied the land of Canaan at the time of Israel’s conquest, they presented one of the first obstacles to rectified service of God. The Divine antidote to these insidious influences is identified in the verse as the attribute of temimut, simplicity or integrity.

That said, the next thing to understand is that the Torah’s abhorrence of occult practice does not imply that a person with unusual sensitivities to spiritual experiences, like yourself, need ignore, suppress, or devalue them. They certainly possess a place, even a prominent one, when incorporated within a Torah-oriented way of life .

It is indicated in various Jewish teachings, that all living beings are endowed with a spiritual consciousness. In particular, we find in the mystical collection of verses called Perek Shirah, the Chapter of Song, that every creature is gifted with a unique song of praise to God .

Although it may not appear this way to most people, it is only by virtue of a person’s choice that the spiritual side of his or her being remains hidden from awareness. At every moment we decide whether it is the external aspect of creation with which we wish to identify—its (apparently) autonomous material character—or whether it is its deep spiritual dimension that we wish to penetrate.

One of the most basic teachings of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the eighteenth century founder of the Chassidic movement, asserts that as we move through life, we are constantly being addressed by God through both our normal and paranormal senses . Every experience in life has some providential significance of which, unfortunately, we cannot always be certain without the benefit of direct prophecy. Although this would appear to leave us in a paradoxical situation, experiencing a constant flow of Divine communication which we are not always able to decipher, Kabbalah teaches us that we can always benefit from these signals by adopting a dual strategy: the innocent path of simplicity together with the focused approach of rational analysis .

These two somewhat antithetical approaches to paranormal experiences work together as follows:

Whenever subliminal vibrations emanating from the created realm amplify themselves into our consciousness, we must try as hard as possible to accept the vibes with equanimity without becoming overly obsessed or concerned with the experience. In true simplicity we should remember that all experiences ultimately emanate from God and thus are equally “normal.” The danger lies in entertaining the possibility that such an experience emanates from some source other than God.

Having accepted the experience with all simplicity, we can then try to analyze the symbols that appear in the experience with the rational tools that are available to us and to attempt to relate the experience to recognized Torah principles.

The very association in your mind with sorcery etc. can totally pollute that which may otherwise be a potentially enriching spiritual experience, for the essence of the occult is denial of God’s absolute unity and His mastery over creation . Thus practically speaking, the permissibility of opening yourself up to the sensations you describe depends upon the degree to which you can rid yourself of such associations.

To some extent, the simple indulgence of the ego in such an experience can be just as threatening as the introduction of occult associations. You should never consciously intend to bring on such an experience for the sake of the gratification it provides you or the feeling of power it gives you. Doing so is a guarantee to either losing your sensitivity altogether or to summoning all kinds of false experiences which are liable to affect a destructive impact upon yourself and upon others .

So don’t attempt to seek out paranormal stimulation. When it presents itself, take it lightly, and try not to exaggerate its significance. In short, be simple with God and you will find joy in having creation sing to you even when the words of the song are unclear.

At the same time, realize that man’s Divine gift of rational analysis is intended to help human beings digest experience so that the moral good inherent therein can be gleaned and the evil discarded. The process of rational analysis, clarifying reality through the prism of our consciousness, is called birur, and it occupies a central place in the Kabbalistic scheme of redemption. The Torah is our representation of the Divine standards meant to be applied in the pursuit of such clarity. Through the process of birur we gradually strip away the layers of illusion that envelope reality and lay bare the Divine essence inherent in all things.

Hence it is incumbent upon you to try to “clarify” your intuitive experience as best you can, using the language and thought patterns of the Torah as a guide.

The teachings of the Torah encompass law (mitzvot and halachah) as well as prayer, ethics, Kabbalah, Chassidut etc. The phenomena that you experience lend themselves in particular to the language and teachings of Kabbalah. Chassidic teachings, which enclothe Kabbalah in an accessible, conceptual form, can surely help you place your experiences into a proper Jewish perspective. Even familiarizing yourself with stories about the great Chassidic masters (especially the Ba’al Shem Tov) will demonstrate to you how relevant and prevalent experiences such as those you describe were to Jews who lived less than three hundred years ago. The stories and parables told by the great Chassidic Master Rabbi Nachman of Breslav are another rich resource for you to explore in pursuing an alternative spiritual language with which to analyze your experience.

Spiritual Healing

Dr. Arnie Gotfryd interviews kabbalist/healer Rabbi Ofer Elfassy :

AG: I know about physical energies - heat, light, chemical, electric, kinetic, atomic - but you work with spiritual energy. What is that exactly?

OE: To understand spiritual energy, we should first understand the concept of give and take. There are those that are givers and others that are takers. For example, someone may be wise and scholarly, even a genius in Torah, but not have the merit to give, to share. The Creator is a giver, His kindness and care are infinite.

My definition of spirituality is giving. If we are to access true spirituality, we must becoming giving people ourselves. Once we tap into G-d's grace, we can then access His healing energy and transfer it to others. That's how I work with spiritual energy.

AG: What does it take to access this energy?

OE: The most important thing is bitul. One must put aside the ego entirely. A selfish person can never be a spiritual healer. The extent to which one negates his sense of self is the extent to which s/he can be successful in this mode of healing. The person with the greatest bitul is the greatest healer.

Read complete article at: Chabad World

Hat Tip: Dovid Chaim

Psychic Connections

Reb Yisrael Yaakov said that the Heavenly signs that inform a person of his spiritual level do not exist in our times. My teachers told me that today we shouldn't concern ourselves with the meaning of dreams. But the Brisker Rav did because, as he said, his father had a Shulchan Aruch on thoughts. For some people, dreams still have meaning.

There is another form of extra-sensory perception that's not as mystical as Ruach HaKodesh or dreams - the capacity to feel fear though the cause of that fear is far away. Rabbi Ephraim Epstein, the brother of the Levush Mordechai, told me that at the time of the Hebron Massacre of 1929, he woke up in the middle of the night and sat trembling in fear at the edge of his bed without any idea what was wrong. The next morning he learned that his son, who was learning in Hebron at the time, had been killed in the pogrom.

This, he said, is what the Gemara [Bava Basra 16b] meant in relating that the friends of Iyov knew when to come visit him because something was wrong with their tree. We see from this how strongly one person can be connected with another.

Source: Rabbi Mendel Kaplan - "Reb Mendel and His Wisdom" by Yisroel Greenwald