Every day, I encounter people who shrey
gevalt constantly about what they do not have. You know the people I’m talking about. They will never be happy, because they cannot
stop looking at their neighbours, looking at what they have, and
thinking that they will never measure up materially. They are exactly the people Hashem was thinking
about when He inscribed the words of that Tenth Word in the stone of the
tablet. Lo tachmod. Thou shalt not covet. This is the most difficult of the Ten,
for the most people. The Seventh is a
challenge for many. (Do not commit adultery.) But the Tenth…even the most virtuous
person I know sometimes fails to withstand the temptation to covet. We all find it difficult at times.
I’m guessing that every parent fights
their children’s tendency to desire with their eyes, that which their friends
have. I know that Clara and I did. Count your blessings, we would tell
them, over and over, having to stop and explain it from time to time lest they
come to think of the words as little more than a mantra. Be thankful for what you have, rather
than resentful for what you don’t have.
It’s sage advice for every child ever born, not to mention every
adult who ever survived childhood.
Because in truth, adults tend to be just as guilty of this mindset, as
their children.
The tendency to covet often comes from
a mindset that I call The Mindset of Niggardliness. Or to use a different word, Insufficiency. A mindset that is never satisfied that
its owner has enough. Now, before you
accuse me of making a racist statement, the word Niggardly has no
linguistic connection whatsoever to ‘The N-word.’ You know, that epithet that
is for many the ultimate expression of contempt for dark-skinned people of
African extraction. It only sounds
similar.
One who approaches life from a mindset
of Niggardliness, goes through life obsessing over what they perceive others as
having more than them. This often
manifests itself over material things.
There’s always someone out there who has a nicer home, a newer car, went
on a more lavish holiday, has a more advanced mobile phone.
But the mindset also manifests itself
over non-material things. My friends has
a more attractive wife than I have. Or,
his marriage is happier. Or, he has a
better relationship with his parents.
Manifested materially or otherwise, one
afflicted by the Mindset of Niggardliness is never satisfied with what one has.
It leads to a life of striving after
that which your neighbour has. Or of
complaining about what one doesn’t have.
This, depending on the degree of initiative or passivity one possesses. But the mindset is the same. It’s all about my neighbour.
It seems that our Torah anticipates that
the people Israel will tend to develop this mindset, and not just in including Do
Not Covet in the Top Ten Commandments.
In this week’s Torah portion Behar, in the 25th
chapter of the Book of Leviticus, we find Hashem giving the people through
Moses the commandment of the Sabbatical Year for the crops. The year that the farmers must refrain from
planting, and cultivating a crop. The year
that he land must rest, and only the residual crop growth – as well as the
foodstuffs stored up from previous years – will be there to ensure the people’s
survival.
Of course this is entirely
counter-intuitive! Of course this
is a Commandment, concerning which the people will tend to want to
circumvent. What agrarian economy would
survive if it were shut down for a year?
What nation, dependent upon its own self-sufficiency for food, would
prevent famine if it were to simply stop growing crops for one year out of
seven? Why would a ‘Rational’ G-d
require this of us??!
I think the answer to the above is
that, on an entirely rational basis, it is perfectly reasonable to cease
producing for a time. A day, a week, a
year. Because rationally, if we’re
working hard and being frugal and saving ‘for a rainy day,’ we can make it
through a cessation of productivity. But
we tend to be irrational about it. And
as proof, I need only point toward the weekly Sabbath and out inability to observe
it.
I can’t tell you how many times Jews tell me that they can’t observe the
Sabbath because they ‘have too much to do.’
This very morning, I heard it from someone who is here for a month or so
alone, with nobody else to worry about, and without work to accomplish – only assorted
errands, none of which has to be accomplished on a Saturday.
Yeah, yeah, the Rabbi is complaining about people not showing up on
Shabbes again! I can hear you thinking that! But think about it. If our Mindset of Niggardliness even prevents
us from setting aside one day a week for cessation from productivity, how could
we possibly fathom a year’s cessation?
And yet either cessation – one day per week, or one year per seven – is not
only possible but, for most of us, quite do-able. We just need to re-order our priorities. And we need to replace our Mindset of Niggardliness,
with a Mindset of Abundance. We need
to see past that which we lack, and celebrate that which we enjoy.
In that sense, Sabbath observance is important not only as an end in and
of itself. It is, in reality, training
for the Abundant Life. If we can make
this step, the step for Niggardliness to Abundant Life, then we can approach
our Jewish lives with a sense of Nobility.
That is, we can see Hashem as being All-sufficient to provide us
with a life of the deeper meaning we need to transcend our own pettiness. And then we can invest ourselves in that
Jewish life. Materially and
emotionally.
At its heart, the Mindset of Niggardliness is patently irrational. Because, if we spend our lives looking at
what other people have that we don’t, we’ll miss and important truth. A truth that should be self-evident. And that is that a focus on others, makes one
tend to conflate the blessings of each person we encounter, into an entirely
mythical sum-total that is not representative of any one person. So in reality, the ‘problem’ is not that we’re
worse off than someone else. Rather,
that the sum total of what all others have will always make us
feel deprived. Chances are that each and
every person hearing, or reading these words today, is quite well-off in
absolute terms. But you will continue to
see yourselves as deprived, as long as you continue to compare yourself to
another who is, in reality, a sum-total of all the others out there.
And all this comes from a Mindset of Niggardliness. A mindset that seems to forever focus on what
we lack. A mindset that cannot seem to
envision a life of Abundance. An
Abundance that, in reality, is already within your reach. You only need to replace the Mindset of Niggardliness,
with a Mindset of Abundance. When we
succeed to make that transition, we will live differently, even if our
resources are constant. Without really
thinking about it, we will invest Abundantly of all our resources to enjoy
our Jewish life In the Image of G-d.
No comments:
Post a Comment