by Laura Gold, a Senior Sermon delivered at JTS

Laura Gold



the priest desires. The philosopher desires

And not to have is the beginning of desire.
To have what is not is its ancient cycle.
It is desire at the end of winter, when

It observes the effortless weather turning blue
….
It knows that what it has is what is not
And throws it away like a thing of another time
As morning throws off stale moonlight and shabby sleep.

An excerpt from “Notes toward a Supreme Fiction,” by the poet Wallace Stevens.
“Not to have is the beginning of desire.” Not to have is part of the human condition, and so desire is the province not only of the priest and the philosopher, but of every one of us. Desire, longing, craving; yearning, wishing, wanting – what does Judaism have to say about these feelings that seem to have a permanent abode in our hearts? What are we to do with our experience of desire? Our experience of not having, our longing for what is not instead of being satisfied with what is?

In this morning’s Torah reading, we heard the Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Utterances or Ten Commandments, culminating in what appears to be the prohibition of a particular form of desire: “Lo tachmod beit re’ekhah – Do not covet your neighbor’s house – lo tachmod eishet re’ekhah – do not covet your neighbor’s wife – v’avdo va’amato v’shoro va’chamoro v’khol asher l’re’ekhah – or his male or female slave or his ox or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Ex. 20:14). How are we to understand what the Torah means by “lo tachmod – do not covet”? How can the Torah command us not to have a specific kind of feeling?

Elsewhere, the Torah commands us to have certain feelings. Two examples will be familiar to many of you. “V’ahavtah et Adonai Elohekhah b’khol l’va’v’khah – You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart” (Deut. 6:5); “v’ahavtah l’rei’akhah ka’mo’khah – you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). As difficult as it may be to unstintingly fulfill the commandment to love God or to love our fellow human being, it strikes me as being at least a comprehensible and reasonable goal. It is one thing to work on cultivating a feeling, especially a feeling of love, but here, in the Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Commandments, embedded in what is arguably the central religious event in the history of the Jewish people, we are told that we are not to have a particular feeling, as if we could administer a kind of emotional vaccine to prevent the possibility of infection by the desire virus. Yet this seems to be precisely the mitzvah, the command, the Torah issues us.

Now, desire in and of itself is not seen as a bad thing by the Jewish tradition; on the contrary, it is a prerequisite for redemption or change. As Rebbe Nachman asserts, “without the forward motion of desire…it is impossible…to speak, or, indeed, to do anything (in Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 126). Bible scholar Avivah Zornberg sees desire as not only the necessary fuel charging the entire enterprise of narrative interpretation, but as central to the experience of prayer. Prayer, she suggests, is about movement toward, a gesture to diminish distance, and this effort to experience intimacy with God encompasses a dynamic process in which desire confronts alienation (p. 119). Desire not only cannot be legislated away, ordered into oblivion; it is a foundational component of our relationship with God, with each other, and with ourselves. Where, then, are we to draw the line drawn between the desire that is desirable, and the desire of the tenth commandment, which we are told not to feel? How do we long for that which we do not have without coveting that which others have? This is no mere academic question; it is one with which I struggle mightily, and I suspect I am not alone.

Maimonides provides a rather neat interpretation of “lo tachmod.” He explains that “do not covet” actually implies deed above and beyond feeling. Maimonides writes, “Whoever covets his fellow’s servant, house, utensils or any saleable article of his, exercising undue pressure until he agrees to part with it, even though he pays him well for it, he has violated the precept of ‘lo tachmod/do not covet.’ He is not liable on this count until he actually takes possession of the article he coveted.” So for Maimonides, “lo tachmod” is not really a dictate about feeling at all, but about behavior. Even when the Torah later reiterates the Ten Commandments in the book of Deuteronomy and introduces a second term for desire, titaveh, Maimonides interprets the word as referring to plotting to acquire the desired object. As the quintessential rationalist, Maimonides cannot fathom how the Torah could be prohibiting pure feeling, and he feels compelled to interpret the tenth commandment as forbidding acting on one’s covetous feelings, either through pressuring one’s neighbor to part with the desired object or, at least, through the ideational activity of scheming to acquire the object. Maimonides skirts the problem of the Torah prohibiting a feeling by offering a reassuring explanation according to which coveting in and of itself, the feeling of desire, is not taboo. To my mind, he makes obeying the tenth commandment too easy and thereby reduces the significance of the mitzvah.
Most commentators do not agree with Maimonides and see the command “lo tachmod” as being precisely as challenging as it appears: a dictate to avoid a particular feeling. Maimonides’ Medieval contemporary Ibn Ezra understands “lo tachmod” to fall into the category of mitzvot of the heart, in distinction to mitzvot of doing and mitzvot of speaking, and Ibn Ezra views precepts of the heart as the most important of all. He understands the thrust of the tenth commandment to be an obligation to discipline and condition the heart so that its automatic response to covetousness is a sense of repulsion. For Ibn Ezra, obeying the tenth commandment is a matter of recognizing that some things are utterly unavailable and unattainable, and through such recognition, Ibn Ezra believes that it will be possible to achieve the tenth commandment’s ideal state of not desiring that which belongs to someone else.
Perhaps the greatest evidence that the Torah was indeed prohibiting pure feeling, and not the action that may arise from the feeling, comes from the fact that among the so-called “possessions” of one’s neighbor that are enumerated in the commandment, the first itemized detail is the neighbor’s wife. Had the Torah meant for the tenth commandment to prohibit acting on adulterous desires, it surely wouldn’t have needed to devote a separate commandment to this issue. After all, the seventh commandment, “lo tin’af,” specifically prohibits adultery. The tenth commandment cannot redundantly be forbidding adultery, but must be prohibiting even having the desire for someone else’s spouse or partner. Here lies the most deeply challenging aspect of the tenth commandment. The desire for your neighbor’s stuff – his Lexus, her place in the Hamptons, his box seats at Yankee Stadium, her signed first-edition of Gone With the Wind – these desires may be compelling – very compelling! – but…they are not the desires that are likely to wreak the most havoc in your soul and on your life. It is the coveting of your neighbor’s wife or husband or partner that has the capacity to eat away at your heart, to irrevocably damage your friendship with your neighbor, and to erode the relationship you have or could have with a significant other.

Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf believes that the tenth commandment means only that you are forbidden from wanting the very car or house or wife or husband that is your neighbor’s, but it’s okay to want a house or car or spouse like your neighbor’s. As with Maimonides’ explanation, this seems too simple to me. It is easy to claim that you only want your own version of what your neighbor has, when a similar car or a similar home would satisfy your yearnings essentially as well as if you inherited your friend’s actual car or house. But claiming to desire a person “just like” your friend’s significant other often masks a desire for that actual person, and when you desire the particular spouse or partner of someone else, you make it impossible to feel satisfied by the unique and irreplaceable person who could potentially be in your life or who, if you are lucky, is already in your life.

The Rozdoler Rebbe was asked: “How does the desire to become a Rabbi differ from other desires?” He replied: “Before you attain the desire to become a Rabbi, you must break yourself of every other desire.” Well, I can tell you that this almost-rabbi has not quite broken herself of every other desire – far from it – and not only don’t I believe this is possible, I don’t believe it is a worthy goal. It is not always so easy to distinguish between the unattainable for which we ought not strive, and the objects of desire that we are not only entitled but are required to try to attain. Nevertheless, it is our responsibility to discern the difference between those desires that motivate healthy self-fulfillment and righteous and holy action, and those predatory desires that embitter and paralyze us or cause unwarranted destruction and suffering to others. If we nurture the desires that are conduits to the sacred, then through our efforts to bring our wishes to fruition, our desires may be transformed into tikkun olam, the repair of the world.

The field of psychotherapy has provided an imprimatur for acknowledging and tolerating the full range of feelings that we all experience, including those that are socially unacceptable and personally unwanted. This flies in the face of the Torah expressly forbidding us from having the feeling of covetousness. Now, I, for one, do not believe it possible to dictate to ourselves what we may and may not feel. In my experience, emotions have a life of their own. In my capacity as a psychologist, how often have I sat with a patient who has despaired, “But I don’t want to feel angry! I don’t want to feel frightened! I don’t want to feel jealous!” And how often have I heard my own internal voice issuing the same cries. It is self-evident that we cannot help but wrestle with difficult and painful feelings, but too often we think that as long as we don’t act on our darker desires – as long as we don’t plot or connive or apply pressure to acquire what we want from someone else – we need not worry about the space those desires take up in our psyches and souls. But when the space they occupy becomes bloated with bitter or resentful craving, it reduces the room left for the heart to love and serve God and each other. That is why we need to be vigilant in our struggle to exorcise the demons of envy and covetousness that constrict our capacity to be truly generous with others and with ourselves.
I certainly cannot offer a foolproof solution to the problem of coveting and especially the problem of adulterous coveting, that most insistent and damaging of desires. But I do think Ibn Ezra was right: the tenth commandment warns us that we will best serve ourselves and each other, and thereby God, by eradicating our covetous feelings instead of indulging them. How are we to do this? By exploring the complex vagaries and vicissitudes of our emotional lives, we give ourselves an opportunity to understand the significance of our deepest dreams and desires, and we may then be enabled to fulfill those wishes that will provide a genuine and profound sense of satisfaction. And when we do that, when we can name our truest desires and feel empowered to actualize them, we have the chance – the chance, at least – of cutting off envy at its root, because at its root, it is about feeling powerless to create the lives we dream of. The magnificence of Judaism is its teaching that if our dreams are about bringing holiness to the world, then we are all capable of fulfilling our desires.

In the penultimate lines of Vanity Fair, William Thackeray asks, “Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?” Not to have is the beginning of desire, and not to covet is the beginning of ascertaining what one should wish for. We are taught not to desire the material goods of our friend, so that we may learn instead to wish for – and work for – those things that would bring healing to the world. We are commanded not to expend energy longing for the partner or spouse of our neighbor, so that we may instead direct our efforts to creating and tending to a relationship with our own loved one. The Ten Commandments give the broad outlines of a life of devotion to serving God and serving our fellow human beings. If we internalize the first nine commandments, so that we worship only God and we do not engage in the idolatrous worship of money, prestige or success, and if we place respect for human life and dignity and justice at the forefront of our endeavors, then we will ensure that our desires will be the right ones, and we will not have cause to covet. This morning we stood as the Aseret HaDibrot were recited. If we really stand for the fundamental tenets that the Torah offers in the Ten Commandments, then our reward will be our very capacity to obey the tenth commandment, to spare ourselves the pain of envy and instead to fan the flames of those desires that illuminate the world with sparks of holiness.

Shabbat shalom.

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