Beli Ayin Hara

From Alona Stewart:
I was just wondering-- what's the difference between an ayin hara and superstition? A lot of the things people do to "prevent" an ayin hara seem a lot like superstition to me.

This answer is based on the research done for a shiur that my husband gave several years ago. I tried to get him to write the post, but no dice.

The idea of ayin hara is well-documented in our sources. To choose just one well-known occurrence of very many: Rashi (from Gemara Berachot 20a) on the brachah of “Ha-Malach ha-Go’el” that Yaakov gives to his grandsons (Bereishit 48:16) says the word וידגו is used because Yaakov hopes they will be like fish, which increase and multiply without the ayin hara having dominion over them. (Other sources: Rashi Shemot 30:12 – the story of how Bnei Yisrael were to be counted, and Bemidbar 24:2 – the story of Bil’am) The ayin hara seems to be specifically associated with counting people. The Gemara, however, doesn’t really define exactly what the phenomenon of ayin hara is.

There are at least four ways that later interpreters approach the concept of ayin hara:

1. Medical – Abarbanel, at the beginning of Parshat Ki Tisa, writes, based on Greek science, that there is actually some harm that could be caused by one person looking at another with bad intentions, just as one person hitting another causes harm. Our current science no longer believes in harm caused by looking, which leads to a big question of how to proceed when our science differs from that of earlier poskim. That is a whole other post.
2. Mystical/Metaphysical – counting, or otherwise drawing attention to someone, and can evoke an ayin hara, which is a harmful force in the universe. This is the approach taken by works of Kabbalah such as the Zohar.
3. Psychological/Metaphysical – when one draws attention to oneself (by enumerating how many children one has, for example, or flaunting fancy possessions) it causes the attention of Heaven to be focused on the one who singles himself out. Hashem will re-examine that person’s account book, and since everyone has some sins, this leads to punishment. Rabbenu Bechaye and Seforno, though they do not mention the words “ayin hara” specifically, take this approach in Shemot 30:2 where Hashem commands that Bnei Yisrael not be counted directly, but by the half-shekel method.
4. Ayin hara doesn’t matter – Whenever the Gemara gives “ayin hara” as the reason for a mitzvah, Rambam gives a different reason unrelated to ayin hara when he codifes the mitzvah. This led at least two acharonim, R. Tzvi Hirsch Chajes and R. Matisyahu Strashun, to conclude that according to Rambam, ayin hara should not be taken into consideration when determining our behavior.
All these approaches are valid in the sources, and thus it behooves us to take care in areas specifically mentioned by Chazal, such as counting ourselves directly, whether it is specifically because of ayin hara or for another reason (like Rambam would say). Adding our own strictures (R. Moshe Feinstein gives an example of someone who is afraid to say that she’s expecting a baby), however, is not necessary.