לא תחמד בית רעך
לא תחמד אשת רעך ועבדו ואמתו ושורו וחמורו וכל אשר לרעך
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house:
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or male or female slave, or ox or ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s (Exodus 20:14).
Most of us do at times feel this emotion, an envious desire for something that someone else has. It may be something physical, like their house or donkey/car, or it may be their marriage or their family, or it may be something else about them like their success or accomplishments or fame or popularity or their artistic ability or intelligence or beauty or some other special quality they possess. We have a tendency to compare ourselves to others and find ourselves lacking by contrast, wishing we were more like this other person in a certain way.
What the People Saw at Sinai and How that Helps:
The verse immediately after this one provides a response to this issue of envy, a way of approaching our covetousness that softens it and maybe helps it begin to heal.
The verse that follows lo tachmod says that the people “saw” something at Mount Sinai. It says first that they saw the thunder and the lightning, and then it says vayar ha’am, “the people saw,” with no object (Exodus 20:15). The Sefat Emet explains that this second seeing refers to the revelation of their own essence – nitgaleh lahem et atzmutam, “their essence was revealed to them” – each one saw, he says, their particular part in the divine. They understood who they were, they saw their own infinite value reflected in God, like a face reflected in still water (Proverbs 27:19). They saw themselves in God.
Still water. They saw themselves in this way as they stood that day, without moving, vayityatzvu it says in one place, and here, vay’amdu, “they stood.” They were not running around accomplishing things and earning their worth. They were standing before God exactly as they were, a group of ragtag former slaves. The rabbis say the giving of the Torah happened on Shabbat, the day of rest. They were not busy doing anything to earn their worth. It was at rest that they learned this lesson, learned who they are in their essence, without accomplishment or performance. It was in stillness that they felt God smiling down on them, that they began to see themselves through God’s eyes, each one of them a shining bright light.
How Anokhi Responds to Envy:
The first and the last of the 10 commandments speak to each other as they surround the rest. Anokhi, the first commandment, is also in some way an answer to this enviousness. God says – Anokhi Hashem Elokekha. I am Hashem your God. Your God in particular, in the singular. You are a part of Me, you are your own special part of me, like no other. Feel your individual connection to me and know that you need look nowhere else for strength or affirmation. No need to want what your friend has. You already have it all. I am your God; I take care of you. You can trust that you already have exactly what you need.
And also, God says – Anokhi – I am modeling for you here what it means to fully inhabit your own infinite value as a piece of the divine: it means to call out loud, Anokhi , “I.” Here I am. I exist. I take up space. I have value. I matter. That is the beginning and the end of it. You need not look to the right or the left of you, to what other people have, to the way they are, to their gifts and successes. All you need to know is right here – Anokhi. Here I am, fully inhabiting myself and my own value.
The Victim of Envy = Yourself:
The person we injure when we are envious of someone else is primarily ourselves. The rabbis struggle to figure out whether this mitzvah in fact has an action component, and if it does, how it differs from theft, if you end up actually taking the thing you covet from the other person. Maybe the difference between envy and theft is who the victim is. In envy, the victim is really you. You are hurting yourself by coveting someone else’s things, someone else’s way of being in the world. You are abandoning yourself, denying your own self worth.
Envy in the Yaakov and Esav Story:
It’s like the Yaakov and Esav story, one of the only other places that this root hamad is used in the Torah. In order to get his brother’s blessing from their father, Yaakov puts on bigdey Esav hahamudot, the hamudot clothing of Esav, his best clothing, the most desired or coveted ones (Genesis 27:15). This putting on of another’s clothing is the ultimate act of coveting; we want so much to be like the other person that we try to wear their clothing, to inhabit their skin, to take on their persona and to steal their blessings, the gifts bestowed on them from God. Who do we hurt when we do this? Primarily ourselves. We are abandoning ourselves, not seeing what there is to celebrate right here. Indeed, Yaakov, too, hurt himself, exiling himself from “home” for many years as a result of this attempt to be someone other than himself.
When we envy the way someone else is in the world, we deny what we saw at Har Sinai, that each one of us is a piece of the divine. Yaakov started life by feeling secondary to someone else, behind them, grabbing on to their heel. He needed to learn to stand tall, as he did when he wrestled face to face with the angel, no longer wanting to be someone else, but fully emerging as himself. Maybe you can stand a little taller yourself, fully inhabiting your body with pride and confidence, arriving home inside yourself. You are the only person like you, a precious divine gift to the world.
Coming Home to Ourselves:
When we look outward at our neighbor’s house and wife and servants and animals and find them desirable, we are not looking inward. We have abandoned our own house, our own parts. It is as if we are standing outside of our house knocking on the door to someone else’s house, trying to get in. It won’t be comfortable there because we aren’t meant to be there. It hurts to be envious. It feels better to come home and to love our own home.
Loving Yourself and Your Neighbor:
The parallel mitzvah to lo tchmod in Parashat Kedoshim is ve’ahavta lere’akha kamokha, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Or maybe – love your neighbor as well as yourself. Love them both, each one a precious manifestation of the divine in this world. Love, that is what counteracts envy. Love for the other, yes, but also, primarily, love for yourself, the kind of love for yourself that allows you to freely and generously love your neighbor, not to want to be them, but to love them from the wholeness of your own self that sees the wholeness of their divine self.
So maybe you can turn with love towards the members of your own internal household, to the many parts of your interior world, to the worker parts and the manager parts and the thinking parts and also to the little children parts of you who may be scared or hurt or lonely, and even to the parts of you that may be as stubborn as an ox or as foolish as a donkey, maybe you can turn towards all of them with love and appreciation and honor. These are your parts, the members of the home that God gave you. Maybe you have abandoned them in the past and turned outwards, running after other people’s houses and spouses and shiny parts. That’s ok. You are here now. You are home, in your own home.
Eleh Hamda Libi – “These my heart desires”:
We say in the prayer Yedid Nefesh, eleh hamdah libi , “these my heart desires.” It is not that we are entirely getting rid of hemdah, of this type of intense desire, but rather learning to channel it. Eleh Hamdah libi – these, the ones inside me, these my heart covets and desires, these and not the ones outside me that don’t belong to me. I can turn the hemdah around. I can turn it inward, towards God and towards my own God-given house, and all the parts inside it.
Maybe we can invite the envious part of us to notice the work we are doing to reclaim our own inherent value. Yes, the envious part wants you to be as confident and smart and accomplished as this other person, but maybe it could just notice what it feels like to look up into the sky, to have an encounter with God, and to see your own reflection there, to understand that you are a part of the divine, and that you don’t have to do anything to deserve that or earn it by becoming more accomplished or beautiful or smart. Just as you are. Already a part of the divine. Maybe the envious part can sense what that feels like, for you to be at home in your own home, not to look outward with envy, but to look inward with love. You don’t need to stand knocking on anyone else’s door. You are whole in and of yourself. Feel the warmth of God’s shining gaze upon, and give thanks for being you.
Photo by king Siberia at Pexels
