As a young, Jewish man, I never quite understood what the phrase "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" means. Can someone please explain this to me so I can understand this saying better?

Thank you for your question, Literally, it means that if someone hit a fellow Jew and damaged his eye which caused him to be blinded in that eye, the Jewish law is that the Beit Din must take out the eye of the one who assaulted the blinded person. However, according to our Sages, the meaning is not literal. That is, we don't actually take out his eye. Rather he must pay the monetary damage of the eye, to the blinded person. See Rashi Shemot 21:24 , Baba Kama 83 Amud 2 All the best