Parshat Yitro: Love of G-d and Material Desire

Apr 25

Original author - Rabbi Yonatan Neril, edited by the GrowTorah Summer Inchworms 2021

The Aseret HaDibrot given in this week’s parsha, Parshat Yitro, culminate with the commandment not to covet: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, or whatever belongs to your neighbor.”[1]

The Torah emphasizes not coveting what your neighbor has. The Torah does not say “do not covet a home,” but “do not covet your neighbor’s home.” Jealousy is being upset with a perceived lack, based on what others have.

It would seem easy to avoid coveting what others have, especially when we are grateful for what we do have. Yet many find themselves struggling with this commandment—wanting what others have, even though we know we shouldn’t. Why do people become jealous?

Rabbi Daniel Kohn, a contemporary teacher in Yerushalayim, notes that wanting what another has arises when a person loses sight of their actual needs. Given our path in life, there may be certain things we need and certain things we do not. Accordingly, the person then begins to desire things for the wrong reasons: because others have it, or because having ‘it’ will give him pleasure or a feeling of power or importance. Due to an occasional poor sense of what we need, some may compare themselves to others, and even judge their own value by how much they have.

The Ketav Vehakabalah, Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg from the 19th century[2] relates the commandment not to covet to a mitzvat asei, “You shall love the Eternal One your Hashem with all your heart.”[3] He explains that the Torah emphasizes loving Hashem with all of one’s heart to teach that a person should be fully committed to Divine service, and not split between love of the Eternal and love of physical pleasures.

In other words, what the heart yearns for is intimacy with Hashem: a connection with a higher reality. When it does not get this intimacy, it covets things from the material world. These things cannot nourish the soul’s true hunger; it’s like drinking soda when the body needs a full, healthy meal. Accordingly, when we covet physical objects, we are not satisfied even when we receive them—we need another thing not long after buying the first one.

The Torah instructs us that one way to address an unhealthy materialistic lifestyle is to increase our spiritual connection to Hashem. In this way, spiritual satisfaction serves as a check against runaway consumerism.

The Ketav Vehakabalah’s teaching is relevant for someone who strives to be close to Hashem while enjoying a range of modern consumer products. His teachings do not seem to say that a Divine-aware life demands living like an ascetic or in poverty. Rather, a Jew should consume as a means to serve Hashem. Such a person might work to be a conscious consumer while still living comfortably and meeting their basic material needs. The Ketav Vehakabalah faults consumption as an end in itself, or as a means to self-gratification, which inevitably replaces space for Hashem’s presence. When people use the physical world as a means to serve Hashem, Rabbi Mecklenberg argues, they will almost certainly consume less because they will realize what their true needs are.

When The Ketav Vehakabalah speaks about coveting, he is addressing Jews living in a pre-industrial, pre-modern, pre-consumer society. To Jews living in the first 3000 years of Jewish history, one might covet their neighbor’s two-room house, donkey, or field—examples the Torah itself uses. Yet we live in a radically different time: modern, consumer-oriented, and highly technological. We live in a materialistic world where coveting has become second nature to some. And in this material world, instead of coveting a donkey or a field, today we may covet technology, cars, vacations, or second homes.

Our community’s and country’s consumption affects the environment. The United States biocapacity—the productivity of its biological assets, including croplands, fishing grounds, forests, and more—is much lower than its subsequent ecological footprint—the measurement of how fast we consume resources and generate waste. The last data from the Global Footprint Network is from 2017, where the US’s biocapacity was 3.45 hectares, as opposed to its ecological footprint, at 8.04 hectares, data on par with the past decade of US consumption.[4] The average American’s ecological footprint requires more than 3 earths to sustain. Though we are able to enjoy material wealth and the privileges it brings, we can also work to be conscious of what impact our material lifestyle has on the environment.

The Midrash states that Hashem “caused [Israel] to hear the Ten Commandments since they are the core of the Torah and essence of the mitzvot, and they end with the commandment ‘Do not covet,’ since all of them depend on [this commandment], to hint that for anyone who fulfills this commandment, it is as if they fulfill the entire Torah.”[5] Through fulfilling the tenth commandment, we work on being satisfied with what we already have, thus aiding in reducing our ecological impact.

“Do not covet” is not a little addendum tacked on to the end of the Ten Commandments, but one of the central messages of Divine revelation. Finding spiritual satisfaction in the service of the Divine is an important means of weaning oneself from a life of physicality. The commandments “Love Hashem with all your heart” and “Do not covet” offer an alternative to a high consumption and an unsustainable future. We can begin to repair the world by seeing our ecological consumption through the lens of the Hashem’s Torah.

Suggested Actions:

Calculate your ecological footprint here. Review your results and see if there are any small, realistic changes you can make this week to improve your results. Can you carpool to work? Take shorter showers? Buy locally grown produce?

Original Canfei Nesharim Sponsorships:

Parshat Yitro is sponsored by Aryeh Moshe Mellman. “I dedicate this parsha to my grandfathers for whom I am named, Morris (Moshe) Warach and Louis (Leib) Shapiro, z”l.”

Click here to sponsor a parsha.