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25 Let your eyes look forward, and let your eyelids look straight ahead of you. | כה עֵינֶיךָ לְנֹכַח יַבִּיטוּ וְעַפְעַפֶּיךָ יַיְשִׁרוּ נֶגְדֶּךָ: |
RASHI | |
Let your eyes look forward: | |
Let them look to truth and uprightness. | |
and let your eyelids look straight ahead of you: | |
Let them look at what is upright, to straighten your way before you. | |
Guard your eyes, that they look only upon things that are acceptable , correct, and true;
Keep your eyelids, looking only at what belongs to you honestly, don’t let them veer to other sides.
This was interpreted on three levels:
Physical - What the eyes see affect the health of the body. At times we do harmful things because we looked at the attractive and tempting. We eat harmful foods because they have a certain food coloring, take a mortgage לע to buy a beautiful vehicle or look at promo (heaven forbid).
On the other hand we can also cause ourselves harm by not looking at something sufficiently well, like not checking the road before we cross, not checking a contract before we sign .
Mental - To keep a healthy and clean mind we should not look at things that awaken negative thoughts. If we are easily irritated we should not look at negative newspaper headlines as we walk down the street. Immodest internet is another example of this.
Spiritual - Guard the eyes from seeing things that lead to sin, crime. Those who have a tendency to be attracted to women should look only at their wife and not at other women.
The verse is telling us to carefully gauge everything we look at so that we see only healthy , beneficial things.
There are many verses in Torah that describe the sins and troubles caused by the eyes:
In Genesis 3:6
Adam and Eve saw and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge and were expelled from Eden
In Genesis 6:2
The Sons of God saw and abducted women; this was considered one of the causes of the flood.
In Genesis 9:22
Ham-year-old Noah saw and dishonored his father; his descendants were cursed.
Genesis 12:14
The Egyptians saw and took the wife of Abraham; God brought afflictions upon them
Genesis 13:10
Lots saw and was tempted to live in Sodom. Eventually he lost all his property and had to flee from there.
Genesis 19:26
Lots wife looked behind her at the destruction of Sodom; she herself became a pillar of salt. Teaching us how severe the punishment can be keeping for not guarding the eyes.
Deuteronomy 4:19
An explicit Torah commandment to guard the eyes.
Numbers 15:39
A technique to guard the eyes - tzitzit is described here.
In the e-book Windows of the Soul point 14, a technique to protect your eyes from seeing harmful things.
"Your eye does not naturally lower its gaze below eye level. you have to make a conscious effort to lower your gaze. This basic strategy is easy and attainable; and it doesn’t mean staring at your shoes and bumping into street poles, or poking along looking strange! "
I have a technique for places that are immodest, but I find I have to be there.
I cut two circles from small green-tinted plastic bags. I place a strip double sided tape on the top back of my sunglasses.
I paste these two circles of tinted plastic behind the glasses. This gives enough vision so I can function but clouds my vision so I cannot really distinguish figures. Certainly they are easier to avoid. Sometimes I double the plastic if I need more protection.
