Thursday, January 28, 2016

The ‘Strange’ Tenth Commandment? A Reflection for Parashat Yitro, Saturday 30 January 2016

Last night I talked about how strange the First of the Ten Commandments sounds.  That is, if you consider I am Hashem your G-d, who led you out of Egypt, the house of bondage to be one of the Ten, and not just a preamble.  This morning I wish to present to you the Tenth of the Ten Commandments, which sounds strange in its own way.  And reflect on why it is there, and why it is essential if the entire ‘package’ is to make any sense to us.
There are a number of law codes in the Torah.  In the next parasha, Mishpatim, we’ll encounter one.  But the Ten Commandments contain ten statements of law that are so basic that one cannot imagine a society based on the relationship between G-d and man, functioning without them.  Worship only Hashem.  Don’t make idols.  Don’t use G-d’s Name to deceive.  Keep the Sabbath.  Honour your parents.  Don’t murder.  Don’t commit adultery.  Don’t steal.  Don’t give false testimony.  Don’t covet that, which belongs to your neighbour.  These ten principles are not the sum-total of what G-d expects of us.  But they are the centrepiece of what is necessary for Israel to begin to create a just society.
          But that Tenth Commandment:  it sounds rather strange, doesn’t it?  All the preceding deal with actions.  Do this.  Don’t do that.  But the last one has to do with our thoughts, doesn’t it?  We’re instructed not to covet.  Some would use the word desire as a synonym.  But the word covet really goes beyond just desiring.  Look, it is worthwhile advice to avoid desiring what belongs to your neighbour.  His livestock. His home.  His wife.  I’ve spoken before, at length, about the pitfall of jealousy.  About the importance of counting your blessings.  But this commandment not to covet, goes beyond all that.
          In the past, I’ve explained it as follows.  If we desire something, that is the first step towards actualising it.  So if we desire something that belongs to our neighbour, that is the first step towards going to steal it, which we know is also one of the Ten Commandments.  So the commandment not to covet, is there to reinforce and serve as a prophylaxis against violating the others.
          But the Ten Commandments should not be seen as carrying the authority of advice!  One can take or leave advice.  No, each one of these statements needs to be seen as carrying the full weight of Divine sanction in its words.  If so, how are we to make sense of a commandment, that tells us how to think?  The answer lies in the word tachmod, usually translated as ‘covet.’  It has to mean more than simply, ‘desire.’  And so it does.
          To covet means to look at something that someone else has, and to believe that, for whatever reason, it is rightfully yours.  To believe that your neighbour, that schmuck, only possesses it because of his cunning, deceit, or perhaps luck.  So you look at what he has, and you wonder why it isn’t yours.  Why that Porsche is in his driveway, not yours.  Why that very driveway, and the adjacent home, has his name on the deed and not yours.  Why his beautiful wife, whom he treats poorly, isn’t yours to treat as a queen.  To ‘covet’ is to question the very legitimacy of your neighbour’s ownership or possession of whatever.  To think yourself as being, for whatever reason, ultimately entitled to it.
          To harbour such thoughts, is likely to lead not only to theft, or adultery, or whatever.  It will ultimately burn at the person’s sense of right and wrong.  It will lead one to question all the other commandments as nothing more than a rigged system to preserve the established order.  It will sow the seeds of chaos and needless rebellion.  Rebellion with no good end.
          The world isn’t fair.  It isn’t fair that someone else has a yacht, and I don’t.  It isn’t fair that someone is good-looking, and I’m not.  But if I define my world by that supposed unfairness, I am setting myself up for eternal unhappiness.  And the world, for anarchy.  That’s why I cringe whenever people make broad statements about the guilt of robber barons and businesses that make more ‘than they deserve.’  For example, I wish petrol would be much cheaper than it is.  But I avoid – and counsel others to avoid – cursing the ‘rapacious’ oil companies that ‘profiteer at our expense.’  It isn’t my business to dictate how much profit an oil company should make.  Or a pharmaceutical company.  Or a bank.  Or an airline.  If I define the world in this manner, identifying those who take more than they ‘deserve,’ then I am feeding the tendency for baseless entitlement.  My sense of justice will forever make me burn with a desire to overturn the world.  That already happened in parts of the world, and the result was not good.


          We have a tendency to desire just about anything we might lay our eyes upon.  Given that, do not desire isn’t really useful advice.  But when we’re told lo tachmod…kol asher lereyacha – don’t covet anything that belongs to your neighbour – we aught to understand the tendency to covet as something far deeper than just to desire.  We desire just about everything that our eyes behold.  No, it’s not a good thing to do so.  But to covet is to question the very order of things.  Not to harbor simple jealousy, but to question the concept of ownership that keeps me from possessing the object of my desire.  To question the legitimacy of my neighbour’s possession of an object, not because I think he doesn’t hold valid title to it, but because I think he doesn’t deserve it whilst I do.  If we understand the Ten Commandments as being the very foundation of a society, then we can see why do not covet needed to be included.  And needs to be heeded.  Shabbat shalom

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