What's Mine is Mine - What's Yours is Yours

Torah Thoughts on Parshas Yisro by Rabbi Moshe Revah, Rosh HaYeshiva, HTC

"לֹא תַחְמֹד בֵּית רֵעֶךָ לֹא תַחְמֹד אֵשֶׁת רֵעֶךָ וְעַבְדוֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ וְשׁוֹרוֹ וַחֲמֹרוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר לְרֵעֶךָ" שְׁמוֹת כ':י''ד  

“You shall not covet your fellow’s house. You shall not covet your fellow’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your fellow.”  Shemos 20:14 

In this week’s parashah we have the Aseres HaDibros. The final commandment of the Aseres HaDibros is "לֹא תַחְמֹד" – “You shall not covet”. The Ibn Ezra famously asks how it is possible to demand that of a human, for coveting is a natural feeling, and if one desires something, how is he supposed to not desire it? While other Meforshim (see Rambam Gezeilah 1:9) explain that Lo Sachmod applies when one does an action to attain the object of his desires, the Ibn Ezra explains this transgression with a famous parable. A common person would not see a beautiful princess and be jealous when she marries someone else. He may recognize her beauty and charm, but since he also recognizes that he, not being from the elite of society, had absolutely no chance of marrying her, he does not feel jealous when she marries someone else. Similarly, a person does not feel “jealous” of a bird that has wings and can fly, for he recognizes the complete impossibility of growing wings himself. Merely playfully imagining in one’s mind a scenario does not violate the prohibition of coveting, which is the internal feeling of being consumed with jealousy one has when witnessing someone having something that “should have been mine!”

The point is that one only feels jealous of things that he feels should have, or could have, been his. If one were to know that the object of his desire is truly not relevant for him at all, then one does not feel jealous. The root of this knowledge is emunah in Hashem’s hashgachah protis in our lives. We must believe that everything a person has, down to his last possession, has been divinely orchestrated by Hashem. If he were to truly recognize Hashem’s involvement on this planet, and that everything he gets or could get has been decreed from above, and no one else is taking things that were supposed to be his, then other objects become as foreign to him as a princess is to the pauper.

Rav Eliyahu Dessler further illustrates this concept, pointing out that if one were standing in front of his friend’s medicine cabinet, which was full of bottles, vials and pills, he would not feel jealous that it is packed to capacity like that. One recognizes that every pill is there for a reason, and he can thank Hashem that he does not require all those pills, as they are all required specifically for the other person.

It turns out that this mitzvah is unique in that the main commandment in Lo Sachmod is a לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה, a negative commandment of “do not be jealous”, but performed through a positive commandment of inculcating in oneself the recognition of Hashem’s hashgachah that everything a person has, has been given to him for a reason.