Society’s Rise and Fall

The Aseret Hadibrot, literally, the Ten Utterances, known to the world as the Ten Commandments, play an outsized religious role in the Western world, particularly in America. They have been unwittingly adopted as the Bible’s most basic religious obligations by a substantial portion of the population, even though most people are unaware that this role is in reality no more than a subtle polemic against Judaism’s faith commitment to all that is commanded in the Torah. What is even more ironic is that this wholesale acceptance comes, for most, without any real sense of what these obligations actually entail. This ignorance is shared by Jew and non-Jew alike.

The last of the Ten Commandments is a case in point:

You shall not covet (lo takhmod) your fellow man’s house. You shall not covet your fellow man’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that your fellow man has (Exodus 20:17).

Its most basic meaning would seem to be that it is forbidden to desire something that belongs to someone else or is otherwise prohibited. Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra attempts to capture the commandment’s essence:

Many seem surprised at this commandment. How can a person not desire something beautiful? … So, I will explain. Know that if a discerning villager were to see the beautiful daughter of the king, he would not come to desire her, for he understands that this is not possible… The same applies to possessions. (adapted and abridged)

For the rabbinic tradition, however, this definition was seen as insufficient. In part, this was because the version of the commandment found in the second formulation of the Aseret Hadibrot uses a different verb:

You shall not desire (titaveh)… (Deuteronomy 5:18)

This difference raised the question of whether the two words were synonymous or reflected distinct prohibitions:

“You shall not covet.” Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says: One verse states: “You shall not covet,” and another states, “You shall not desire.” How are these two verses to be reconciled? They teach liability both for desiring in itself and for coveting in itself, and they further teach that if one desires, in the end he will covet – “Do not desire and you will not covet.” And if he does covet, in the end he will use force and steal, as it is written: “They covet fields and steal them” (Micah 2:2). (Mekhilta de Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai 20, Epstein-Melamed ed. p 153)

This midrash presents sin as a progression: a person’s internal defenses gradually erode until an actual transgression occurs.

In another early midrash, a more obscure teaching carries a number of interesting legal implications:

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says: One verse states: “You shall not covet,” and another, “You shall not desire.” How are these two verses to be reconciled? This is a warning to one who goes after the adulterer (okef achar ha-no’ef). (Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael Yitro 8, Horowitz-Rabin ed. p. 234)

The meaning of this final phrase is unclear, but two interpretations became prominent. One suggests that one who covets another man’s wife provokes jealousy that ultimately destroys the other party’s marriage. The second understands the coveter as someone whose unbridled desires lead them to induce others toward promiscuity and adultery.

What is clear in all of these interpretations is that while it is difficult, if not impossible, to legislate what goes on in a person’s mind, it is nevertheless incumbent upon the individual to recognize how dangerous uncontrolled thinking can be. It is not merely the stuff of newspaper headlines; it is the very force upon which societies rise and fall.