Then Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place where you can see them; you will not see them all but only the outskirts of their camp. And from there, curse them for me.” — Numbers 23:13

The Torah portion for this week is Balak, after the king of the Moabites, from Numbers 22:2–25:9, and the Haftorah is from Micah 5:6–6:8.

The gift of sight allows us to take in so much information about the world around us. Not only do we receive facts and knowledge by looking at something, we also may receive inspiration or good feelings from what we observe. However, what we often don’t realize is that when we look at something, we aren’t just on the receiving end. We are also contributing and affecting the world around us, even if we don’t know it.

Quantum physics confirmed this concept through an experiment that was set up in order to ascertain whether matter was a particle or a wave. I’m not here to give a physics lesson, but the end result was startling. When not observed, matter behaved like a wave. However, when the matter was observed, it changed into a particle. In other words, scientific evidence proved that an observer does influence what is being observed. That means we all affect what we look at, and how we see things affects them profoundly.

This isn’t a new idea in the Bible. In this week’s Torah portion when Balaam wanted to curse the children of Israel, he was forced instead to bless them. This did not please King Balak, who had hired Balaam to curse the Israelites. Interestingly, as the pair tried several times to curse the Israelites, they used different vantage points. Scripture stresses that Balaam had to see the people in order to curse them. When one mountain didn’t provide the desired results, they tried another view.

The Sages explain that the reason why Balaam had to see the people is because sight has power. When we look at something, physical light comes into our eyes, but spiritual light comes out of our eyes. In order for Balaam to curse the people, he had to see the bad in them. But he couldn’t. In fact, in the second message to come out of Balaam’s mouth, he said, “No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel” (v.21). Try as he might, Balaam couldn’t see anything bad in the people, and so he could not curse them.

The Sages teach that just as seeing bad in people has the ability to curse them, seeing good in people blesses them.

It’s a truly amazing idea. If we look at a person and focus on their faults, we give power to their negative traits. But when we focus on their good points, they will become better people. It is therefore imperative that we focus on the good in every single person whom we meet. In this way we will bless those people and help everyone we encounter to become his or her very best.