Question: Will I tempt the evil eye if I paint the baby's room before I give birth?
Answer: Let me share with you two divergent perspectives on the “evil eye” issue. Both of them have their roots in Jewish traditions.
Firstly, there is the commonly held perspective in Judaism that one should not stand in the limelight. When you stand out, you are asking to be judged as an individual in the eyes of the Almighty rather then within the corpus of the Jewish people. It’s not a good idea to do this as all individuals have failings. In contrast, the Almighty has a special relationship with the Jewish people as a whole. Thus, being one of the tribe is, for lack of a better word, safer.
Secondly, there is the perspective, which I heard from one of my Rebbeim in Yeshiva, that one should not take the baby for granted. An extraordinary miracle is happening inside your body. The more you appreciate that, the more the Almighty will deal with you as one who appreciates it. For this reason, many people will not tell anyone about the pregnancy until it is visible (around three months) and thus G-d has already made the announcement to the world. This is also the reason that from time immemorial there have been prayers said throughout the pregnancy by both the mother and father.
By way of analogy, if you do an extraordinary favor for someone beyond what anyone else could do, you would expect not to be taken for granted. If you were taken for granted, then you might not want to continue “trying” so hard (G-d forbid!). Appreciating is a cornerstone of our holy Torah, and this is one of the informal ways the Jewish people have been accustomed to express it.
These two perspectives probably split up between the Sephardic/Chasidic traditions and the Ashkenazic/Lithuanian traditions. Both are legitimate within the confines of Jewish law.
For a wonderful book on the guidelines of dealing with superstition and the supernatural, I highly recommend Rav Yaakov Hillel’s (one of the world’s greatest living Kabbalists) book, Faith or Folly. Rav Yaakov Astor wrote an amazing book on the hereafter called Soul Searching: Seeking Scientific Ground for an Afterlife.
For what it’s worth, I personally felt the second perspective very powerfully after we suffered through three miscarriages in a row. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. But we now have our BLI AYIN HARAH (without the evil eye) fourth child, and he has a very special place in our hearts.
May your child be born at a good time and grow in Torah, to marriage and good deeds,
Rabbi A. Page
