This mishnah appears in Pirkei Avos, chapter 2, mishnah 16 (in some versions it is numbered as mishnah 11). Before us is the second of the three pieces of advice given by Rabbi Yehoshua, one of the five students of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai: "Rabbi Yehoshua omer: ayin hara, v'yetzer hara, v'sinas habrios motzi'in es ha'adam min ha'olam" - Rabbi Yehoshua says: an evil eye, the evil inclination, and hatred of one's fellow creatures remove a person from the world.
"Motzi'in es ha'adam min ha'olam" - remove a person from the world: two ways of understanding this
First it must be made clear that the phrase "remove a person from the world" is not praise but a severe condemnation, and in Jewish thought it is one of the most terrible things that can be said. Two approaches are offered in explaining it:
Literally: this is how most of the Rishonim understand it - these three traits cause a person to die before his time.
In a borrowed sense: they remove a person from this world on a conceptual level. A person is brought into the world with a one-time opportunity to forge a relationship with the Holy One, Blessed is He, and when he is distracted and misses the goal entirely because of these three factors, he is cut off from it - much like a person in a coma or in a daze, who is disconnected from his surroundings. Such people miss the point and miss the opportunity that life offers.
A precise reading of the word "ra"
In the phrases "ayin hara" and "yetzer hara," the word "ra" (reish-ayin) does not necessarily refer to wickedness. "Ra'ah" (reish-ayin-hei) means wickedness, whereas "ra" can also refer to something that is poor, unstable or impermanent. The Ramban in Bereishis describes that when the Holy One, Blessed is He, evaluates various aspects of His creation as "good," the meaning is that they possess permanence and continuity; something temporary is not "good."
Sefer Yetzirah describes the world as a universe with five dimensions: the three spatial dimensions (right and left, up and down, forward and back), the dimension of time (past and future), and a fifth dimension - movement along a moral continuum, either toward the Holy One, Blessed is He, or away from Him. Just as one can rise higher and higher without end or descend lower and lower without end, so too a person can move in the direction of good, toward the Holy One, Blessed is He, or in the direction of evil, away from Him. "Good" means attaching oneself to eternity and permanence, and "evil" means detaching oneself and becoming something temporary and fleeting. Therefore, the things that are "ra" remove a person from this world, since he becomes less and less connected to permanence and more and more a temporary phenomenon.
With this introduction, we will explain each of the three traits and how it removes a person from the world - both in the literal sense and in the borrowed sense. It is worth noting that at the end of the fourth chapter we learn another mishnah, from Rabbi Elazar HaKappar, which lists three different things that remove a person from the world, and we will discuss it in its place.
The first: "ayin hara"
The Bartenura understands that the "ayin hara" here is a synonym for the "ayin ra'ah" mentioned earlier in the words of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos as the worst of traits. Although these are not precisely the same words, he understands that both refer to the same thing: just as an "ayin ra'ah" means that a person is not satisfied with what he has, but instead focuses on what he lacks and envies others, so too the "ayin hara" here means directing one's thoughts toward what he is missing, without appreciating what he does have.
Every person would do well to reflect on this for a moment. In his life there is an endless amount of things that he does have, blessings in abundance, and an endless amount of things that he does not have and would like to have. That is the nature of the human condition, and there is not a person on the face of the earth who does not want many more things that he does not have. Life, then, is a choice between focusing on what he does have and appreciating his blessings, and focusing on what he lacks and feeling a constant sense of deprivation. The second approach is a recipe for a miserable life.
As Rav Noach Weinberg, the rosh yeshiva, used to say: if a person is capable of being bored with the eyes he sees with, he is capable of being bored with anything. The marginal benefit of a new car, a new air conditioner or a knee that does not hurt pales in comparison to the difference between blindness and sight - and yet we give no thought at all to the fact that we have eyes; we simply take them for granted. A person must focus on what he does have and learn to appreciate it; regarding the eyes, our Sages even instituted a special berachah, and in general a person is obligated to count his blessings.
Two practical suggestions in this area:
A gratitude journal: Rav Noach used to advise that every night before going to sleep a person should make a list and write down two new things - one physical and one non-physical - that he is grateful to Hashem for and appreciates in his life. This naturally turns a person into a happy person and trains him to focus on his blessings rather than on what he lacks.
Writing in a siddur: Every person should have his own personal siddur, and on the inside cover he should record each time his prayers were answered. Over time the cover fills up with all the times Hashem answered his prayers, and this trains a person to understand that Hashem is with him, responds to him and can be relied upon, and that his prayer really does work.
These are different kinds of blessings - both the blessing of a life lived with Hashem, and the material and non-material blessings in life. The point is that a person needs to focus on these things, so that his orientation will be positive, and out of that will come healthy emotional wellbeing. This is especially important, because without it a person becomes rotten on the inside, and that destroys him.
A bitter soul exacts a heavy price from a person, even a physical price. The Meiri understands this literally: a person who feels deprived will take risks in order to obtain what he does not have, and those risks will endanger his actual life. In my humble opinion the figurative explanation makes more sense, that a person who is always focused on what he lacks loses out on life entirely, and therefore this takes him out of the world.
An astonishing Rashi is worth noting: when Hashem turns to Adam and asks whether he ate from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam answers, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate," and Rashi says there: "Here he denied the good" - he was ungrateful. What is Rashi teaching us? In my humble opinion the point is that until that moment Adam still had the ability to save the situation and not be banished from the Garden. But once he was ungrateful, Hashem, as it were, understood: there is no point in doing any more good for him, since leaving him in Gan Eden accomplishes nothing when he does not appreciate what is being done for him, and the more he is given the more spoiled he will become; the only option left was to banish him from the Garden. It was his ingratitude that took him out of his Gan Eden. So too with us: if we do not appreciate what Hashem gives us, there is, as it were, no point in His giving us more, since it only spoils us further. We have to appreciate what He does, and therefore one who cannot manage to hold on to a good eye and see the good in his life - this takes him out of the world.
Some understand that "the evil eye" here is not a synonym for the trait of a "bad eye," but a separate matter: the evil eye in its literal sense, that by the way a person looks at his fellow he arouses the attribute of judgment and scrutiny against him. He looks at another person and says, "Why does he have such a big house and so much money that I don't have?" and in doing so he provokes judgment against him in Heaven, as if they say up there, "Indeed, a good question. What does he have coming to him? Is he deserving of it?" - and that person may lose what he has. The evil eye is a real phenomenon, as explained in Bava Basra and in the Gemara in other places, and in certain circles, such as Moroccan circles, this is a very central matter in Jewish culture.
According to this second explanation, a person who arouses the evil eye toward others and envies them for what they have - this takes him out of the world: either because the moment a person makes enemies for himself, they will come to take revenge on him and literally shorten his life; or in the figurative sense, that stinginess of spirit exacts a price from a person. And it is already stated in Mishlei, "and envy is the rot of the bones" - envy rots the bones. It eats a person up from the inside and hollows him out, in that he wishes harm on others and looks at them grudgingly. Therefore, one who wants to live a long, healthy and happy life and to realize the opportunity in that life to connect with Hashem must have not a bad eye but a good eye.
The second: "yetzer hara":
The yetzer hara is the inclination toward evil. As explained above, one can understand evil as distance from Hashem, but practically speaking it refers to all temporary things - attachment to the affairs of this world, similar to the things animals are drawn to. When a person has an urge, a drive and an inclination toward temporary things, including addiction to physical desires - eating, drinking and the like - this can literally kill him:
Excessive drinking: The World Health Organization states that five percent of deaths worldwide are connected to alcohol. Heavy drinkers destroy their livers, cause themselves accidents, damage their mental health and bring cancers upon themselves.
Excessive eating: Obesity and overeating are responsible for an enormous number of deaths, even greater than that of alcohol.
Sexually transmitted diseases: A hundred years ago, in the developed world, roughly ten percent of people (approximately, with a large margin of error) died from sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea. Today, now that medicine in this area has improved and these are no longer such a significant factor, drug addiction serves as the parallel factor.
Addiction to physical desires costs a person his actual life, and in that way it takes him out of the world. In the figurative sense it is also easy to explain: a person who focuses on satisfying his physical desires is distracted from the opportunity to forge a relationship with Hashem, which is beyond all of these. There is nothing wrong with eating and drinking, but they need to take place within the context of a fuller experience - relating to Hashem, who blesses a person with these opportunities and with the ability to enjoy this world, rather than chasing after them as goals in themselves, in the sense of "do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes."
The third: "sinas habriyos":
The Bartenura, and Rashi similarly, explain that hatred of one's fellow creatures means baseless hatred. The point is not that hatred of the creatures, meaning hatred of humanity, is identical to baseless hatred; rather, there is a time and a place for hatred: there is nothing wrong, and it is even fitting, to hate morally corrupt people, and one need not feel guilty about harboring negative thoughts toward wicked people and terrible murderers. But that is not what the Mishnah is addressing. The Mishnah is addressing someone who is a "hater of people" - who simply does not like human beings in general. That is a terrible disposition, and it destroys a person.
Three explanations are offered for this:
Magen Avos: A bitter person exacts an emotional price from himself. He does not like people, and as a result he lives in a sad and irritable world, and this problem of mental health takes its toll on him.
Bartenura and Meiri: A more practical explanation - a harsh person who does not like people and looks at them with hostility will be met with the same attitude in return, and people will not like him. He makes enemies for himself, and those enemies will harm him and endanger his life.
Rambam: Here there is a fine and subtle distinction. A person who hates other people will naturally respond by withdrawing to the desert or the forest, finding himself a cave and living there alone; and once he lives alone in a cave, he is exposed to all sorts of dangers that come with total isolation.
All three explanations take the language of the Mishnah at face value: one who does not like people endangers himself on a physical level. It is worth pointing out in this context the longest study ever conducted on human happiness - the Harvard longitudinal study, which has been running since 1938, close to ninety years. One of its most striking findings is that the greatest predictor of a person's happiness, and even of his longevity, is his social connections. A person who fails to develop deep and meaningful relationships - friendships, marriage and the like - pays a heavy price for it, not only in his happiness but in the actual years of his life, and this confirms precisely what the Mishnah comes to teach.
And in the metaphorical sense: life is not meant to be lived in isolation, and we have already discussed the idea that a person should not separate himself from the community. When a person's orientation and sense of self is "me against the world," he is clearly missing the core of the agenda that the Holy One, Blessed is He, set before him - to be part of a community, to build it and to play a role within it. Once he cuts himself off from that, he has removed himself from the world, because he has missed the opportunity of his life to be part of something far greater than himself.
In summary: In this Mishnah we learned the three traits listed by Rabbi Yehoshua - the evil eye, the evil inclination and hatred of one's fellow creatures - and the two ways in which they "remove a person from the world": literally, by shortening his days, and figuratively, by causing him to miss the very opportunity for which he came into the world. We examined the meaning of the word "ra" as something temporary and disconnected from permanence; the evil eye as a focus on what is lacking and on envy, and the remedy for it in gratitude and a generous eye; the evil inclination as an addiction to physical desires that distracts a person from his connection with his Creator; and hatred of one's fellow creatures, which severs a person from the community and shortens both his life and his happiness.