Yitro: How Can I NOT Covet?

Joe Cohen's alarm goes off, but as he's had a very late night, he sleeps right through it. He wakes up in a panic, throws on his suit as quickly as he can and rushes out the door to drive to work. He then hits the rush hour traffic head on and looks nervously at the clock on his dashboard. Arriving half-an-hour late, he pulls into the company car park, fearing how much trouble he will be in but cannot find a free spot to park. Having driven around the lot and checked out each potential space, he stops his car in desperation and looks up towards the heavens. He is not a religious man in the least but despite this, he cries out: “Dear God, if you please just give me a parking spot I promise I will go to synagogue every week, will only eat kosher food, and I’ll follow every single one of the Ten Commandments, just PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give me a vacant spot so that I won’t lose my job!” Miraculously, a parking spot opens up right by the front of the building. He then looks back up to the heavens and says, “never mind I just found one!”

On the face of it, each of the Aseret Hadibrot, the Ten Commandments (although literally, the translation reads as 'The Ten Sayings') seems to be achievable.

1. Remember that I'm the Lord your Gd who took you out of Egypt? No problem. That's why we have Pesach!

2. Don't serve idols? It's a no-brainer because I don't.

3. Don't take my name in vain? OK, this one maybe a little more challenging but I can certainly work on my language skills and tone them down with a little more self control.

4. Remember to observe Shabbat. Yes, that is difficult and it will impact on the way I live my life, but there are millions of Jews who are Shabbat Observant and they manage! It's probably one of the more challenging of the ten, but not impossible.

5. Honour father and mother. It goes without saying that they are the reason why I'm here, so of course, I want to recognise their crucial place in being the people who made me the way I am.

6. Don't kill? It wouldn't even cross my mind.

7. Don't commit adultery and be faithful to my partner? That goes without saying.

8. Don't steal? I wouldn't dream of it - it doesn't feature at all in my thoughts.

9. Don't lie under oath in court and act in falsehood against the defendant? Again, not something I would ever do.

10. Don't crave after your friend's £3 million house or lust after his pretty wife or bemoan the fact that he can afford a butler and a maid (noch!) and drive a brand new 2021 registration Porsche 911 (which only cost him an astronomical £73K, but he bought his previous one in 2018)....hold on, that's not so easy!

Nine out of the Ten Commandments are achievable because they rely on our being able to control our physical desires and fit within the moral compass inculcated into our beings by our parents for as long as we can remember. How though can one realistically obey a commandment that forbids such a basic desire in each of us. It's true that I may not be attracted to my neighbour's wife (or husband) but would I really be able to avoid feeling a mite envious as to the luxurious life he or she is leading? Is it such a sin to visit a friend's house and compare it to your own?

In short, how can Gd expect us to keep all Ten Commandments if the final one is nigh impossible to achieve?

In order to appreciate how Chazal, our Sages dealt with this conundrum, we need to take a step backwards and look at the Ten Commandments in a holistic manner. I would also add that the interpretation I am following here relates to the language used in this week's Sidra when referring to the Aseret Hadibrot, as opposed to the slightly different terminology employed in the Sidra of Va'etchanan where Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah is recounted by Moses shortly before his death.

The late Nechama Liebowitz zl, in her masterly 'New Studies in Shemot' book discusses this very problem and quotes the Ibn Ezra (d.1167). He views the entire spectrum of Mitzvot, in other words, all 613 commandments as having been divided into three distinct categories, which are namely:

1. Precepts of the heart

2. Precepts of the tongue and

3. Precepts of doing

He then subdivides each category into does and donts.

In the first section regarding the heart, his 'Does' include the commandment to love the Lord your Gd as well as to ‘love your neighbour as thyself'. 'Dont's' meanwhile cover such commandments as 'don't hate your brother in your heart' or 'don't bear a grudge'.

In the second category regarding actions of the tongue, he includes the commandment to say the Shema twice a day and Grace After Meal ('Benching') whilst dont's refer to our ninth commandment of not bearing a false witness or cursing using Gd's name, which as I wrote is the third of the commandments.

These first two categories (precepts of the heart and tongue) relate to our relationship with Gd. The first two commandments focus on affairs of the heart. In the Shema, we are told to love Gd with all of our heart (bechol levavecha) . If we love Him in our hearts, we will remember what He did for us in rescuing our ancestors from Egypt and we would therefore never consider rejecting Him through serving idols. When we come to the Third Commandment, that of speech, we move from precepts of the heart to precepts of the tongue. This is then followed by the last two commandments, that of remembering Shabbat by the actions that we do (the precept of doing) and then similarly demonstrating our respect for the parents who brought us into the world and reared us - through the actions that we perform.

When we look at the second section, namely the last five commandments which provide a framework for our relationships with others, the obverse comes into play. Firstly there are the 'doing' commandments, namely, 'do not kill/commit adultery/steal followed by the precept of misusing the tongue through providing a false testimony in court.

Which leaves us with the puzzling anomaly of our first question - 'do not covet' which by its very nature would seem to fit within the first precept, that of the heart, yet how can one practically avoid coveting? Unless there is a different way of understanding the commandment or rather the precept that it would be included within?

Numerous Sages struggle with this notion and suggest that, in order for the commandment to make sense, the Torah is referring to the physical actions that might manifest themselves as a result of someone coveting their neighbour. A classic case quoted is that of King Ahab who was covetous of his neighbour Nabot's vineyard and when the latter refused to sell it to him as it belonged to his family, he had him killed, upon the advice of his evil wife Jezebel (Kings 1: 21, 1-16) or indeed David's behaviour when it came to his relationship with the married Bathsheba.

As with most Rabbinic debates, numerous approaches are suggested (i.e. as to whether coveting is considered as being a precept of the heart over the concretisation of those feelings through actions) and at the end of the day, the Ibn Ezra counters these with a beautiful parable:

He says that a peasant may covet a beautiful princess and although his heart might will it, his mind will ensure that he realises the futility of such thoughts. It is as feasible that he would 'possess' this maiden as it would be that he grew wings like a bird! In the same way, a person who holds by the other nine commandments will know that Gd has forbidden him from realising his fantasies. In doing so, he will appreciate his own portion and be thankful for what he has.

The Ibn Ezra posits the notion that whether we hold that coveting is a matter of the heart or indeed a physical act, if we truly love Gd and respect the Torah He gave us, the commandment to avoid coveting lies hand-in-hand with our realisation that what we have is plenty and wanting to have someone else's belongings and treasures is as fanciful as turning into a winged creature. When Gd tells us not to covet, he is instructing us to realise how blessed we are by focusing on our own lives, cars, houses and spouses.

May we all appreciate what we have and recognise the Gd-given internal and external beauty that we have been endowed with, in all of its manifestations.

Shabbat Shalom