21 Jul ARE YOU A JEALOUS PERSON? WHY ENVY IS IGNORANCE

The tenth and final of
the Ten Commandments
recorded in this week’s
portion (Vaeschanan)
reads: “You shall not
covet your neighbor’s
wife; you shall not covet
your neighbor’s house, nor his field, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his donkey, and anything that belongs to
your neighbor.”(Deuteronomy 5:17; Exodus
20:14).
The structure of the verse seems strange. In
the beginning, the Bible specifies seven things
we should not covet: “You shall not covet
your neighbor’s wife; you shall not covet
your neighbor’s home, nor his field, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his donkey.” But then, at the conclusion
of the verse, the Bible states: “And anything
that belongs to your neighbor.” Why the
unnecessary redundancy? Why not just state
at the onset “You shall not covet anything
that belongs to your neighbor,” which would
include all of the specifics? And if the Torah
does not want to rely on
generalizations and
wishes to specify details,
why does it specify
only a few items and
then anyhow revert to
a generalization, “And
anything that belongs to
your neighbor?”
A Holistic Story
In Hebrew, the word
employed for “anything”
and “everything” is
identical, “Kol.” Hence,
the above verse can also
be translated as, “You
shall not covet your neighbor’s
wife; you shall not covet your
neighbor’s house, nor his field, nor
his manservant, nor his maidservant,
nor his ox, nor his donkey, and
everything that belongs to your
neighbor.” By concluding the verse
with these words, the Torah is
not just instructing us not to covet
anything
of our neighbor,
but also helping
us achieve this
difficult state of
consciousness.
How could you
demand from a
person not to be
jealous? When
I walk into your
home and observe
your living
conditions, your
cars, your bank
accounts, and your
general life style,
how could I not
become envious?
The answer is,
“Do not covet
everything that
belongs to your
neighbor.” What the
Torah is intimating
is that it is indeed
easy to envy the
home and spouse
of your neighbor,
his servants, his ox
and donkey; yet the
question you have
to ask yourself is, do you covet “everything
that belongs to your neighbor?” Are you
prepared to assume his or her life completely?
To actually become him?
You cannot see life as myriads of disjointed
events and experiences.
You can’t pluck out one aspect of
somebody’s life and state “I wish I could
have had his (or her) marriage, his home,
his career, his money…” Life is a holistic
and integrated experience. Each life, with its
blessings and challenges, with its obstacles
and opportunities, constitutes a single story,
a narrative that begins with birth and ends
with death. Every experience in our life
represents one chapter of our singular, unique
story and we do not have the luxury to pluck
out a chapter from someone’s story without
embracing their entire life-journey.
When you isolate one or a few aspects of
someone else’s life, it is natural to become
envious. But when you become aware of
“everything that belongs to your neighbor,”
your perception is altered. Do you really
want to acquire everything that is going on in
his or her life?
So the next time you feel yourself coveting
the life of the other, ask yourself if you really
want to become them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was correct when he
observed that “envy is ignorance.”