[Avodah] An-im Zemiros

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:

> But to answer your question... Blind people tend not to look at too
> many things. What second time?

It's a joke.  The way I heard it was that the first time you look
you go blind in one eye; the second time you go blind in the other
eye.  And the third time you look, you die.

AFAIK the only genuine source for anything like that only says that
looking at the Cohanim's hands causes general weakness and ill health,
not anything specifically ophthalmological.

Al pi nigleh the reason not to look at the Cohanim, or at anything
else, is so as not to be distracted from hearing the bracha.  It has
long seemed to me that going under a talles with several people,
including screaming kids, is *less* conducive to focusing on the bracha
than forgoing the talles and just closing ones eyes.   Also, a talles
with several people under it gets hot and stuffy, especially if the
Cohanim sing at great length between words, and by the end one is
waiting impatiently for it to be over, which is not what it's about.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas