R. Yochanan was accustomed to go and sit at the gates of the bathing place. He said: When the daughters of Israel come up from bathing they look at me and they have children as handsome as I am. The Rabbis said to him: Is not the Master afraid of the evil eye? — He replied: I come from the seed of Joseph, over whom the evil eye has no power, as it is written, Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine above the eye, and R. Abbahu said with regard to this, do not read 'ale 'ayin, but 'ole 'ayin'.
R. Judah son of R. Hanina derived it from this text: And let them multiply like fishes [veyidgu] in the midst of the earth. Just as the fishes [dagim] in the sea are covered by water and the evil eye has no power over them, so the evil eye has no power over the seed of Joseph.
This gemara teaches us how to avoid the damage of the ayin hara. The way the ayin hara works is that people have an affect on each other. We are all influenced by our surroundings. So if someone has negative feelings towards his fellow it can cause harm. There are two ways to avoid this.
One way is to have such elevated desires, to have such lofty ambitions, that nobody can affect you. That is what the gemara means by עולי עין - a person can be ABOVE the עין הרע.
The second way is to be hidden from your surroundings. To be deep. To be a "nistar". That is the what the gemara means when it says that we should be hidden like fish.
עין איה
[Note: Right after I wrote this post I went to daven mincha at the Young Israel of West Hempstead. After mincha they honored me and invited me to say a dvar torah before maariv. I was completely unprepared but I had this on my mind so I said over this piece [with about 14 jokes interspersed. My favorite was when I said that in order to avoid the ayin hara, ashkenazim say "knain a hara". Something about a dog. People didn't get it, so I said "Canine" - get it?] Good thing I read the blog....:-)]
