לא תחמד
The last of the Ten Commandments says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house: you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his servant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything of your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17).
As we know, the Ten Commandments were repeated by Moshe to the people of Israel 40 years later, before the people entered the land of Israel. The two versions of the 10 Commandments are virtually identical. With a few exceptions. One of these exceptions has to do with the Tenth Commandment. While in the book of Shemot (Exodus) it says: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house …”, in the book Debarim also says “You shall not desire …”, (לא תתאווה) your neighbor’s house, etc. Maimonides and other rabbis explain that the Tenth Commandment includes not one but two Mitsvot, two different levels in the area of envy.
According to Maimonides, “You will not desire” is transgressed when one desires something that his or her neighbor owns, and thinks or plans the way to get that object from him. This prohibition has to do exclusively with thought.
“You will not covet” on the other side, has to do with action. When I not only envy what my neighbor has, but actively try to get it from him, I press him to sell it to me, intimidate him, etc. This commandment is actively transgressed when I obtain the object of my desire, even if I have paid for it.
Thus, there are three levels related to the act of envy or jealousy.
1. The first level of envy is when I spontaneously desire what my neighbor has. This thought, although as we shall explain later, is the root of all the rest, is not technically “penalized” by the Tora, as these thoughts enter our minds involuntarily. 2. The second stage is when I allow and let that spontaneous thought of envy to settle in my mind, and I transform it into my own thinking. This happens when I plan how to get what I want. In this case, there is already an element of “voluntary action” and personal responsibility, even if everything only happened at the level of thought. Therefore, planning, calculating, and speculating about how I could get what belongs to my neighbor is considered a transgression of the Tenth Commandment. 3. When my plan materializes, and I obtain what I coveted, even by permissible means, I have transgressed the most serious level of the Tenth Commandment.
As we have explained, spontaneous envy (the first level) cannot be eradicated. A European Jewish poet, Solomon N. Rabinovich, wrote the following satire to illustrate the human problem of envy. One of his characters confesses: “The day that I do very well in my business, when I arrive in my town I tell all my neighbors that I did very bad, and so, I am happy and they are happy. When I do very bad, when I get to town I tell them that I never had a better day, thus, I’m sad and they are sad too. ” Beyond the funny angle, this crude satire shows us that humans, by nature, are envious.
But, there are ways to conquer the thoughts of envy. The Tora teaches us that one can be educated not to be envious, first of all, by not letting the feelings of envy to settle in our mind.
In the next days, B’H will see how this self-education is achieved.
(To be continued)
