Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenosecha Yisrael.
"How beautiful are you tents, Yaakov, your dwelling-places, Yisrael!", exclaimed Bilaam HaRasha, as he stood on the mountain top, and beheld the Jewish nation camped below.

He was overcome by the astonishing modestly of a nation of six hundred thousand families, not a single door facing the neighbouring door, not a single man gazing on the wife of his friend; each home a fortress of privacy, of Kedusha. (Yalkut Shimoni)

Bilaam admired what he saw, and at the same time, he couldn't stand it.  The harm that he eventually did succeed in causing was not through his curse.  Bilaam was the greatest gentile prophet that ever lived, in a certain aspect, on par with Moshe Rabbainu.  Yet when he was hired chas veshalom to curse Am Yisrael, he was unsuccessful.  All three different tries ended in fiasco for him, that is he blessed instead.

The harm that was done was through ayin hara, his evil eye.

When we hear the expression ayin hara, it evokes mystical, superstitious connotations.  Not at all so.  When Chazal speak of this phenomenon  they are talking about very real, concrete injurious effects of tsarus ayin,   the destructive emotion of jealousy.

The jealous person suffers from inner emptiness, from discontentment.  As is apparent in the story of the two mothers that came before Shlomo Hamelech in a dispute over the surviving baby, an envious person cannot rest as long as the other person has what he lacks.  It is not even clear what makes him "happier"; that he obtain what his rival has, or that his rival lose it.

Let us examine for a moment the destructive energy called jealousy:

Kedusha, holiness is always associated with the setting up of boundaries, delineations, partitions.  For example, in the midbar, as long as the nation camped, and boundaries were set up, the area in which the Holy Ark rested was strictly off-limits to everyone except the Kohain Gadol on Yom Kippur.  Once the camp started travelling and the mishkan taken apart, the boundaries were erased. Anyone could tread on the spot where the Aron had once rested, for the Kedusha of the place was now dispelled.

Where there are proper bounds set up and respected, there is Kedusha.

Harai at mekudeshes li, "Behold, you are sanctified to me", expresses the Chasan to his new Kallah under the chupah.

The jealous person recognizes no boundaries.  He lacks the self- discipline that results from recognition of boundaries.

When the jealous person is truly consumed by his emotions, he seeks undermine the partitions through insidious means:   One very rampant symptom of jealousy is verbal abuse; snide remarks, sarcastic comments, irrelevant judgements and criticisms.

All of these eat away at the foundations of a marriage relationship, tamper with optimum child-raising chinuch capacity.  Man is instructed to "leave" his parents' home and cling to his wife.  This departure is more than geographic.  The Torah is instructing us about the severing of emotional dependence.  The home must be hermetically sealed, in the metaphysical sense.  This is the way to prevent interference that is irelevant and obnoxious at best, and often chas veshalom poisonous, and actually noxious.

With this in mind, we must re-examine the roles of relatives and friends with respect to our Mikdashai me'at, our homes.

Is the family unit truly our center and focus of energy??
Do others; friends, neighbours, relatives have input in our attitudes, behaviour and decision making processes??
 

I recently heard of a woman who went on a starvation diet, after her mother-in-law told her that she was overweight.  Would it not have been worthwhile, many times over, to screen out and cut off this source of harmful input, rather than keeping the communication lines open, thus endangering this woman's physical and emotional health, besides bringing interference between husband and wife, lowering his opinion of her, and thus actively disturbing Shlom Bayis???

The Torah society is not man-oriented, nor woman-oriented, contrary to popular misconception.  The ideal Torah society is shlaimus-oriented, man-woman shlaimus-oriented.  The Jewish home, ideally, is the perfect creative unit, containing within it all that is necessary for perfection; ish v'isha, Shechinah bainaihem.  Marriage is the ideal setting for full spiritual development.  The delineation and boundary and discipline set up by the Kedushin, allows for true, meaningful expansion, for the unique and creative combination of the contrasting forces of gevurah-tzimtzum-limitationand chesed-hispashtus-expansion; the giving of ourselves to our spouses, to our children, and hence to our community..

All this is contingent on the strict maintenance and upkeep of the tznius and privacy.  One never knows how and when chas veshalom the tsar ayin can creep in.
This level of faithfulness, devotion requires emotional discipline.  It requires the focusing of energy, rather than its scattering.  The tsar ayin is the scattered one.  Recognizing no bounds, his eyes, his misjudgements, his comments stray all over.

Interesting.
This was precisely the effect that Bilaam did manage to have.   Epitomizing the tsar ayin, he eventually did make his inroads: by breaking into the sanctity of the family unit and inciting on Klal YIsrael the bnos moav.
Jealousy > disregard for boundaries > immorality.
It is a frightening, degenerative process.

Sometimes, we may find ourselves encountering difficulties in our emotions toward certain people.  The direction set by the Torah is clear.  If you have difficulties, then distance yourself.  Better remain at a friendly distance and cause no harm, then chas veshalom put yourself in a situation where negative emotions are likely to get expressed in some form or another.

From the mouth of our arch-enemy, the hateful Bilaam, it is worthwhile to remember the secret of our survival and of our strength.
It is worthwhile to invest within.
 

A gutten Erev Shabbos
from Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh
 

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