We certainly
talk a lot about sin on this one day of the year. I might add, only on this one day of
the year. We Jews don’t use the term
‘sin’ very often. We’ve largely expunged
it from our religious vocabulary. For
this reason, the repeated use of the word ‘sin’ – either as a noun or a verb –
on Yom Kippur is potentially very jarring.
It takes us out of our comfort zone.
Of course, the use of the word ‘sin,’ in and of itself, shouldn’t be
jarring. ‘Sin’ is just a translation of
the Hebrew chet. But the Hebrew
carries a connotation that seems to get lost in the English. Chet specifically means ‘missing the
mark.’ It means not quite getting it,
not quite reaching the goal. It
means not succeeding in guiding ourselves to the behaviours we know we’re
supposed to manifest. Sometimes, we sin,
or miss the mark, for lack of effort.
Sometimes, for lack of information.
Sometimes, because we’re distracted by something we want more than to
behave in the way we know we’re supposed to.
So, why does the very language of sin, the very word, repel
us? Probably because of its association
with a concept that some of our neighbours advocate. And that is, that we are necessarily wallowing
in sin as a result of our being human.
That we are fundamentally flawed, and that flaw causes a death sentence
to be imposed on us from birth. The Jew,
rightly, questions this premise with all his soul. If God created us, how and why could He have
created us only to implant in us from birth a guilt that deserves the
death sentence? So we tend to leave the
idea of sin, even the very word, to our neighbours.
But that doesn’t change our existential truth: each one of us struggles mightily all our
lives between how we know we’re supposed to behave, and how we want
to behave. The Rabbis account for
this by identifying Yetzer Hatov and Yetzer Hara: the Good and Evil Inclinations. In the Rabbis’ way of explaining our reality,
we have forces within and without that counsel, on the one hand, the Good, and
on the other hand, the Bad. As we go
through life, we struggle constantly to follow one or the other. To me as to many of you, this resonates
deeply. At each ‘fork in the road,’ when
faced with a decision, we struggle to make the best decision. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we do
not.
In my generation, that of the Baby Boomers, we solved this problem
handily: we rejected any absolutes. All standards of behaviour became simply relative. That is, the standard itself depends
entirely upon the situation. We call
this, ‘situational ethics.’ And there’s some
merit in the concept. We have to live
in the real world, the world that actually surrounds us, and not in some
theoretical construct. And yet…if
there are no absolutes, then there’s only preference. So real world can certainly be used to
temper an absolute. But there still
are limits.
We talk about sin most extensively on Yom Kippur. And because it is unfamiliar to our lips, it
seems jarring. But really, Yom Kippur is
supposed to jar us out of our accustomed comfort zones. That’s really the whole point of it.
I like to refer to the Ten Commandments as the Top Ten Commandments,
because there are after all 613 Commandments altogether. But these ten rate two mentions in the
Torah: one in Exodus and one in
Deuteronomy. The last of the ten is Do
not Covet, meaning do not envy the things your neighbour has. Generally speaking, Jewish law and ethics
focus on behaviours, not thoughts.
So why would the Top Ten include a negative commandment
concerning only what’s in one’s head?
A logical answer would be that Envy of one’s neighbour’s possessions is
a likely genesis to one being tempted to steal them. And of course a proscription of stealing is
also one of the Top Ten. And I
don’t think it’s refutable that Envy does indeed lead to much stealing. You got it, I want, I’m gonna take
it. Sounds simplistic, but that’s at
the heart of much thievery. Probably,
nearly all. That, and a sense of
entitlement that often extends to feeling entitled to our neighbours’
goods.
But I think that the reason for the prohibition of Envy goes far
deeper. When we allow ourselves to be
consumed by envy, we can never be happy.
No matter how many blessings any one of us enjoys, one can always make
long, long lists of things that someone else has in greater measure. Of course, I mean material things, meaning
the wealth to buy them. No matter how
much wealth you have, there is always somebody – likely a long list of
somebodies – who have more. But I also mean
personal characteristics. We envy others
because they’re more attractive, taller, more svelte, more blonde, smarter,
more talented, or healthier. And so on.
When our children were young, we
often invoked the mantra Count Your Blessings. We would interject it whenever they
expressed envy about someone else’s things or situation. We would tell them to count their blessings –
to remind themselves of all the great things we had – and then we would
begin reciting the list. For example,
our son might express envy because a friend of his had a house full of
electronic toys. We never thought that
we owed our children such things, and our home always compared ‘poorly,’ so to
speak, in this area to the homes of his friends. Even friends whose family income was
considerably lower than ours. So when
Eyal complained of this, we would start listing the things that we enjoyed,
which his friends did not. For example: our children had homes and patrimony in two
different countries. We’d just taken a
family vacation in Italy. We went skiing
together the previous winter. We had the
loving embrace of a close community. You
get the point. It’s nice to have the
latest game console, along with a shelf full of the latest games. But our priorities were different, and our
children enjoyed blessings that were not shared by all their friends. But as long as we’re focused on what others
have, which we do not, it is difficult to keep that in mind.
Like children, like adults. We
find that our adult friends, no matter how old, are very likely to slide into
the Envy trap often. It may not lead
them to thievery, but it is guaranteed to engender unhappiness. And that unhappiness is so unnecessary!
You heard me say it. You’ve heard
Clara say it. And I daresay you’ve heard
others say it. Happiness is a
choice. It is not an emotional
state. It should be an entirely rational
choice. And yet…how can you rationally
choose happiness when your eyes are full of the things that someone else has,
that you desire. The solution is not to
close your eyes, or pluck them out so that you won’t see what your neighbours
have. Rather, it is to open your
eyes to what you have. Each one
of us has been blessed in various ways.
Each of us in a special way. And
if we’re honest with ourselves, in measures far exceeding what we deserve. We can spend a lifetime envying our
neighbours for what they have. Wallowing
in our grievances that someone else had the luck to be endowed more than us in
some way. Without deserving it. But all of us are blessed in ways that
we don’t deserve. Life isn’t about what
you deserve. It’s about what you’ve been
blessed with. And what you do with that, with which you were blessed.
My recommendation, then is a simple one.
Choose happiness. Choose to cast
envy aside. On Rosh Hashanah, I spoke
about taking inventory of the excess baggage we’re carrying around with
us. I spoke about how we should be
honest about it. And jettison it rather
than let it weigh us down as we move into a new year. Envy is just the sort of thing I was talking
about. It is nothing but excess
baggage. Deadweight to carry around, to
drag us back and prevent us from reaching the place we desire to be. Once we recognise this truth, and make the
commitment to cast envy aside, we are on the way to a good and successful year. Let’s make this commitment now. G’mar chatimah tovah.
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