Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Teacher Appreciation Shabbat
February 1, 2002
The Least Appreciated of the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments occupy a special place in our religious tradition and those of our daughter religions, Christianity and Islam, as well. The Ten Commandments symbolize and epitomize the revelation of God’s will for humanity. At Temple Israel, they are the most prominent symbol on our entire building by far. In fact, some people know this as the Temple with the Ten Commandments. They are emblazoned on the outside of our building, three stories high.
The message of the Ten Commandments appears relatively straight forward, easy to understand: I Adonai am your God who led you out of Egypt. Do not worship other gods or make idols. Do not swear falsely in God’s name. Remember Shabbat. Honor your father and your mother. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor. And then we come the the tenth Commandment: Lo tachmod — You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male or female slave, or his ox or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
Friends, we don’t talk about this Commandment very much, do we? We talk about remembering Shabbat, honoring our parents, not stealing or murdering, but rarely do we talk about the tenth Commandment — not coveting. This is ironic because in our Jewish tradition the Tenth Commandment summarizes all the previous ones. The Midrash says that to violate the Tenth Commandment is tantamount to violating all ten. I’d like to suggest tonight that this often over-looked and under-appreciated Commandment deserves our attention.
Lo tachmod — do not covet — what does it mean? What does it mean to not covet your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s wife, or anything that is your neighbor’s? According to Medieval commentators, lo tachmod means to not desire what belongs to someone else. Coveting takes place in the heart; it is an emotion. Coveting is akin to lust. So in that respect this Commandment is different. Most all of the mitzvot, the commandments in Jewish life, have to do with actions. Lo tachmod, the Tenth Commandment, deals with our thoughts and our feelings. It addresses emotions like desire, lust, jealousy, envy.
Some of us in this sanctuary grew up in an era which discouraged negative thinking. We should not prohibit or restrict or inhibit. OK, for your sake we’ll restate the Tenth Commandment in a positive, affirmative way, while retaining its meaning. My classmate and dear friend, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, suggests that the positive formulation of the Tenth Commandment — Do not covet what belongs to your neighbor — is: be content with what you have and therefore with who you are. Do not desire what belongs to someone else, be content with what you have and who you are.
Now that we understand what the Tenth Commandment means, why is it there? Why does the Torah prohibit us from desiring what belongs to someone else? Why does the Torah instruct us be content with what we have and who we are? Because desire can sometimes lead us to harming others. We certainly have a long history of such. Let me give you an ancient example and a modern one. In the Book of First Kings. King Ahab of Israel lived in a palace near a vineyard belonging to a man named Naboth. The King desired Naboth’s vineyard; he wanted to make it a royal vegetable garden. He offered Naboth money or to exchange his vineyard for another piece of land. But Naboth refused the King’s offer. When the King complained to his wife Jezebel about his frustrated desire, Jezebel arranged to have Naboth killed, so that the King could take possession of his vineyard. King Ahab’s desire to have what belonged to Naboth led to Naboth’s murder.
My wife loves to watch figure skating on television. Now we are getting ready for the Olympics again and so, a couple of weeks ago, there was a major figure skating tournament and they reviewed an incident which happened several years ago. You remember Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, Olympic hopefuls, until Kerrigan was physically assaulted at a skating rink just a few months prior to the Olympic trails. And, as the story unfolded, Tonya Harding — one of Kerrigan’s prime competitors — was involved in the assault along with her husband, Jeff Gillooly. Harding and Gillooly engaged in a modern husband and wife conspiracy to do harm which paralleled the biblical husband and wife conspiracy of Ahab and Jezebel. The degree of harm was not the same, thank God. Kerrigan was hurt but not killed. But the motivation for causing harm was the same — the desire to have what someone else has. King Ahab desired Naboth’s vineyard; Tonya Harding desired Nancy Kerrigan’s status.
Desire for what is not ours can make us feel dissatisfied and unhappy with what we have and who we are. Envy can disturb and dissolve our peace of mind. When we desire someone else’s spouse, we can become dissatisfied with our own spouse. When we desire someone else’s possessions, we can become unhappy with our own possessions. When we desire someone else’s talents and abilities, we can reject and resent our own talents and abilities.
This desire for what belongs to someone else easily leads to a destructive way of thinking called the "if only" attitude. If only I had so-and-so’s money. If only I had so-and-so’s job. If only I had so-and-so’s looks. If only I had so-and-so’s body. If only I had so-and-so’s brains. And so it goes, on and on. The implication is: If only I had something other than what I have now, then I would be happy — so I cannot be happy now.
The harm caused by such coveting is simply this — when we desire what belongs to someone else, we turn our attention and appreciation away from who we are and what we have. We thus send a message to ourselves that who we are and what we have are not enough, not enough for us to be satisfied, not enough for us to be happy!
Now it is understandable that so many of us have this idea. Our economy stimulates our desires and tickles our wishbone. Look through the advertisements in any good magazine and you literally drool over the sumptuous food, clothing, furniture and travel spots offered for our consideration. As you turn the pages, your heart cries "Gimme, gimme."
Let me share with you a comparative study that was done more than 15 years ago, which means it is only worse today. One hundred years ago John Doe, if he were asked, had about 72 wants and if pressed, he had a list of about 16 basic necessities. Fifteen years ago, as a result of modern day advertising, John Doe had about 500 wants, 94 of which were absolute necessities. You see, 100 years ago with limited sales forces and no television, there were about 200 objects pressed on the populace for sale. Today, there are 32,000 items and if you name all the brands and different varieties of the same products, the total is somewhere around 400,000.
Thus, the temptation to covet if not what is your neighbor’s, then what is like your neighbor’s is being stimulated almost every minute by our contemporary advertising industry.
So what is the answer? How do we resist? I think that the formula was given to us 1800 years ago by Rabbi Ben Zoma. "Who is rich?" he asked. And his response was "Ha-samay-ach b’chelko — the one who is happy, satisfied, content with one’s portion." Ben Zoma’s teaching is the positive prescription of the Tenth Commandment. By rejoicing in our portion, we turn our attention away from what we do not have and we focus our attention on what we do have. We turn away from an attitude of depravation which causes unhappiness and turn towards an attitude of wholeness which leads to happiness and peace.
My dear fellow teachers, to be content with one’s portion, to appreciate what one has, is one of the important lessons I hope you can help us parents teach our children. Let me suggest a couple of examples. A man was walking down a steep hill in Boston one day shortly after a snowfall and saw a youngster skiing with only one ski. He stopped the boy and said: "Son, don’t you know you are supposed to have two skis?" The lad looked up with a happy grin and replied: "I know I ought to have two, but I ain’t got’em. But mister, you can have a lot of fun with one ski if you ain’t got two."
We need to reduce the number of things one just has to have in order to be happy. Of course there is a minimum level below which contentment is virtually impossible. It would be difficult to be content with constant need, but we do not see that very often, thank God. I’ll never forget a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi’s worldly possessions after his death. Although this man might have had almost anything his heart desired, he owned almost nothing and left almost nothing of material value. This man, who was truly a world leader, left only these physical possessions — two pairs of sandals, two eating bowls, a pair of spectacles, a spoon, knife and fork, and a book of Hindu scripture. It took so little to satisfy Gandhi physically, but he rejoiced in his lot and made the world rejoice as well.
An American farmer was quoted as saying "I’ve got this little home and a grown-up boy who is doin’ well out in Montana, and all the work I can do, and all the clothes I want to wear, and all the vittles I can eat. I ain’t never too hot in summer, for there is always a breeze comin’ across the river. And I ain’t cold in winter because I can crawl up close to the stove. Now what more can any reasonable man ask for?"
Of course reasonable people do ask for more — for automobiles, air-conditioning, central heat — but the question is not whether we ask, but in what tone of voice and with what temper of heart. To rejoice in one’s lot does not mean to turn our backs on all material improvements. It simply means to enjoy what we have; and, if we can have more, to enjoy that too. But not to be miserable if we must get along with less. Not to be envious of others’ good luck and tear ourselves apart with desire for what they have.
Socrates lived in a luxurious age. Then, as now, show windows caught the eye, and the standard of living indulged in by his wealthy friends tempted emulation. But as he walked through the marketplace and noticed all the luxuries in the shops of Athens, Socrates would say to himself: "How many things I can do without!" He rejoiced in his lot.
But notice Rabbi Ben Zoma said "rejoice," not "resign." The source of our contentment is not that "things could be worse." One of my mentors, Rabbi Robert I. Kahn, of Houston, says that one morning he got up on the wrong side of bed and left the house in a black mood. All the way to the hospital, where he was going to do some visitations, he complained to himself about what a hard life he led. Rabbi Kahn writes: "As I came to the door of the polio ward, I heard three patients in iron lungs laughing at each other. They were rejoicing even in their lot. Could not I in mine? It was not their misery that made me happy, but their happiness that shamed my misery."
Sometimes we cannot see our own blessings. There is an old story about the couple who were dissatisfied with the home they had lived in for a long time and decided to put it on the market and look for a new one. They listed their home with an agent, and the next Sunday they began to scan the want ads for a possible new home purchase for themselves. "What a beautiful house this sounds like," said the wife, excitingly pointing to an ad. "Let’s go see it." It was their own home; they had forgotten how to rejoice in what they already had.
There is still one more step to take toward true contentment of spirit and that is not only to rejoice in our own lot, but to rejoice in our neighbor’s lot as well. To conquer the envious disposition by truly rejoicing in our neighbor’s good luck and possessions and to share our own good fortune with those who have less.
We are reading and hearing daily about the Enron situation. You know what it is all about — greed. Greed is a disease. Add envy and you have a cancer of the soul. Therefore, we are commanded "You Shall Not Covet". But how do we distinguish between desire and covetousness? Between ambition and avarice? Between normal hunger for a materially better life and an all -consuming, unending struggle for it?
We can still set goals, aim for growth and improvement — and should. We should aspire to be the best person we can be and, at the same time, we can say "yes" to our lives right now, in this moment. Who is rich? One who is happy with one’s portion.
We are given a choice in life and here is why you teachers are so important. You help children learn how to make choices — not alone, hopefully in partnership with parents, with synagogues, churches and mosques, with extended family — grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. You help our children learn that they have a choice between two divergent paths — one path leads to life, blessing and happiness, and the other path leads to the opposite direction. When we choose to embrace the wisdom of the Tenth Commandment, when we choose to be happy with what we have and who we are, when we choose to rejoice in our portion — whatever that portion is — then I believe we are walking the path that God would have us walk: the path of acceptance of who we are and what God has given us; the path of affirming our lives and the world in which we live; the path of sharing, of wholeness, happiness and peace. Please help us teach our children to walk that path, and may God be with us on our journey. Amen
This message has benefitted from the work and words of Rabbis Robert I. Kahn and Rick Schechter.
