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
No comments:
Post a Comment