“Rabbi Yochanan said, ‘Who is the disciple to whom a lost item is returned by casting his eye on it? He who is meticulous about turning his gown’” (Shabbat 114a).
We should understand why specifically for this merit is it returned to him, for it implies that even if he is versed in all the parts of the Torah and observes all the Mitzvot [commandments], if he does not have this quality, it is not returned to him. We also see that with this quality, people from the street are more meticulous not to turn their gowns.
We should understand this in ethics. It is known that the soul is clothed in the body, meaning that the body is the gown of the soul. The body is the will to receive, the nature with which man is created. When a wise disciple is meticulous about turning his gown, meaning turning the will to receive to work in order to bestow, he can be given back what he lost because there is nothing of which to suspect him.
Suspicion pertains to where he has a will to receive. At that time, it can be said that he is lying and wants to receive the lost item for himself. But when all he wants is to bestow, he can be given back everything because it is certain that he is not lying.
Concerning returning the lost item, it can be interpreted as our sages said, “Who is a fool? He who loses what he is given” (Hagigah 4). Concerning giving, it means that he is given from above some awakening and flavor in Torah and Mitzvot, and afterward, he loses all the awakening from above that he had.
The reason for this is that he is a fool, as our sages said, “One does not transgress unless a spirit of folly has entered him” (Sotah 3).
“Folly” means that one cannot adjust his practices to be in equivalence of form with the Creator, but rather wants to receive all the pleasures in the world for his own delight. By this he becomes separated from the Creator, and therefore loses the Kedusha [holiness] that he had. That person is called “evil eyed.”
But he is given back the lost item when he casts his eye on it. “Casting the eye” comes from the words, “He who has a good eye shall be blessed,” and the gauging of the good-eyed is that he is meticulous about turning his gown. This means that he inverts the body, called “will to receive,” which is the gown of the soul, into a desire to bestow. At that time, he is given back his lost item, meaning he is rewarded once again with the spirit of Kedusha.