Dangerous gazing: Teachings of the sages

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(After the second Temple was burned to the ground the Jews scattered to foreign lands and the rabbinic traditions began.  The attempts were to hold on the the essence of the teachings yet adapt to various locations.  Often the rabbinic traditions get criticized because they were commentary on the orginal writings, or Torah.  Hence, they were seen as too far removed from the original texts.  However, one can see in their writings subtleties which apply to life with true understanding.  The many interpretations and to the scope of human experience.

One can see in this tradition how one statement can lead another person to dig within themselves to find various truths from experience and observation.  We can all benefit from this?


Pirket Avot”  Teachings of the Sages

2:16   

Can our gaze ruin someone's life?  Rabbi Joshua warns that it can, describing the power of erasure and absence that one person can impose upon another.


Commentary on 2:16 from Siddur

There is a gaze that sees what is not there, a gaze of absence that a person is capable of bringing into the world, looking at what is and noting most especially what is lacking.  This erasing gaze is treated by Rabbi Joshua as the opposite of faith.  Opposite faith stands erasure.  In opposition to the gaze of faith, which calls on every creature to grow, stands the indifferent, erasing gaze of evil.  The begrudging eye—an evil look that empties out what is, the evil impulse—evil that directs itself toward destruction of what is, hatred of one's fell human beings—going about in the world just wishing everyone would disappear.

It is no surprise at all that in Hebrew the two words er(awake, ayin-resh) and ra (evil, resh-ayin) are reverse twins.  Together they map out the axis of faith and Jewish ethics one should be awake to the possibility that exist within each person, within each moment; one should find in oneself and all encounters some small measure of good, some hint of what can be redeemed, some possibility of growth.  Without that generous, awakened gaze, we become selfish and our view of the world becomes sour and toxic.