Why reverse order? The last 5 commandments are very down to Earth. The first 4, though they are rightly placed first, can be harder for non-religious (and even some religious) people to understand. So, I am doing the easy ones first, but that does not mean they are easy to DO. This post deals with Commandment 10:
You shall not covet (desire, lust after) anything that belongs to someone else.
Do not covet? That is what our entire way of life is based on, coveting. You see a television commercial for an automobile, and it is not telling you about its mechanical superiority over other automobiles. It is presenting the automobile as an object of desire. Modern capitalism inherently suggests that desire is GOOD. That lust is good. If any actual capitalists refrain from suggesting that, they would be practicing religion not business (and G-d bless them if they did.)
The real default religion of America and much of the world is that desire and "happiness" are the ends of life. The desire, the lust for stuff and experience, gets you out of that bed in the morning and the experience or consummation of that desire, whether shopping for cars or sex or drugs or whatever, is the reward for your work. You deserve it. That is what society tells you.
And what if you get all these things you supposedly deserve? The American standard of living is pretty high, but so is opioid addiction, suicide and general despair. Look at Tony Bourdain, dude had EVERYTHING. Traveled the world, ate the best meals in existence, could probably have any woman he wanted. Hung himself in a hotel room. And they say he suffered from depression, that's why. Well there is a hell of a lot of that going around, isn't there? Is that normal or natural? I doubt it.
Why is the commandment "do not covet?" Most of the Commandments deal with what you DO: this one deals with how you ARE. The reason for this commandment is another commandment, written in Deuteronomy 6:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today
are to be on your hearts.
~Deuteronomy 6:5-6
You are not obeying this commandment if your desire for created things is greater than your love of the One who created them. To love the gift and not the giver is a kind of spiritual theft.
Now, what specifically is mentioned in connection with coveting? That the object of desire does not rightfully belong to you. Coveting something too much, even if you could go out and buy it immediately, order that stuff up from Amazon, is not good, but that is or can be a minor failing. It's like greed, or gluttony, or lust: it's definitely bad but it's not murder. To covet something that rightfully belongs to another though, like their wife or their husband, is a double sin. First, that you have a wrongful priority in your heart, because lust or excess desire is inherently a disordered state of mind. Secondly, you have insulted or diminished one who is made in the image of G-d, your neighbor, for the sake of your desire.
When the Bible says "love your neighbor," it is not referring to an emotion. I do not love my neighbor, emotionally. I usually don't have any emotions towards my neighbor to speak of.
I DO respect his personhood however, his dignity as my equal before G-d. That is what "loving neighbor" actually is, not an emotion. To seek to deprive him of something rightly his, is to dishonor or seek to diminish that dignity and personhood. Which is the origin of many sins, disrespecting G-d by disrespecting His image in people. So when you covet something belonging to your neighbor, first you have a lustful mind which is not good but it's a common failing. Secondly though, you have treated him as unequal, which before G-d he IS your equal, made in the image of G-d no less than you.
{Now, G-d can make the decision that a person or group, like the Canaanites, are no longer equal, no longer "your neighbor," but you are not entitled to make that decision yourself. In the Tanakh, the Israelites are commanded to do truly awful things to the Canaanites because their wickedness is being judged by G-d, but individual human beings don't get to make that call. Not justly, anyway.}
This demonic desperation for pleasure or experiences is the source of much suffering in the world. Conversely, the love of G-d can make a person happy even in objectively less than optimal circumstances. A life oriented around coveting and sensual experiences and greed is practical nihilism, it is nihilism in action. It says in the Torah that Moses was on the top of a mountain in the desert without food or water for 40 days, and did not hunger or thirst. The Israelites in Sinai ate bread where there was no bread; drank water where there was no water. A man can live by whatever G-d says he can live by, if G-d says that he lives. That was a big part of the point of Sinai: to blunt the edge of desire and make the people understand that G-d created all these things that they desire, the cucumbers and melons of Egypt. So love him first, not just what He makes.
"Do not covet" is a commandment meant to be written in our heart, not just in our actions. If we have the commandment of Deuteronomy 6:5-6 written in our hearts as it should be, the 10th Commandment just naturally follows. Love G-d first.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
You shall not set your desire on your
neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant,
his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your
neighbor.
~Deuteronomy 5:21
No comments:
Post a Comment