[Avodah] blinded by the light?

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning
: R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so
: as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot..

"Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama"
would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no?

:                                                            Even if
: not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do
: mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)?

The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind
person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when
he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being
removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in
order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing?

That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point.

Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and
R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and
it blinded them.

HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded
themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked
at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so
that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at,
and accidentally blinded themselves altogether.

(Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the
meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?)

Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Every child comes with the message
micha at aishdas.org        that God is not yet discouraged with
http://www.aishdas.org   humanity.
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