Davar Acher: You Will Not Covet: The Great Reward of Living a Sacred Life
February 1, 2010
Torah
(1 comments)
by Mark. S. Glickman
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)
 Our commentary poses an interesting and important question: Numbers one through nine of the Ten Commandments deal with behaviors concerning Shabbat, honoring parents, theft, murder, adultery, and so on. But then we come to number ten, the prohibition against coveting. Unlike its predecessors, this commandment seems to prohibit a thought or a feeling rather than an action. When another person has something that we want, we're not supposed to, well, want it.
"God," we want to say, "You're not being reasonable here. Every day, our brains boil with all kinds of negative thoughts and feelings - the covetous ones, frankly, are far from the worst. And if You think we can control these raging neurons, then evidently, O Creator, You still have a thing or two to learn about us. Plus, isn't it what we do, rather than what we think, that really matters?"
How, we wonder, could it make sense for God to prohibit the unavoidable?
We see a hint of an answer to this question when we note that in Judaism, the Ten Commandments aren't actually called the Ten Commandments. In Hebrew, we refer to them as Aseret HaDib'rot, the Ten Utterances. Perhaps, then, this "commandment" about coveting isn't really a commandment at all, but something else instead.
Let's look at the Hebrew. We usually translate lo tachmod (Exodus 20:14) as "You shall not covet," but it can also mean, "You will not covet." While both "shall" and "will" are future tense, the word "will" implies choice. Translated like that, it sounds like a promise--a promise with which God concludes these Ten Great Pronouncements. Keep numbers one through nine--honor your parents, celebrate Shabbat, show fidelity to your spouse, take only what is yours, and do all of the others--and you won't covet. You'll be happy with what you have (see Rabbi Jehiel Michael of Zoloczow cited in Sparks Beneath the Surface, Lawrence Kushner and Kerry M. Olitzky [Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995] p. 88).
No, God doesn't demand that we avoid coveting. Instead, God promises that by living right, we will be able to avoid it. The great promise of religious life, in other words, is the promise of true contentedness.
To me, that sounds pretty reasonable, after all.
Rabbi Mark S. Glickman is rabbi at Congregation Kol Ami in Woodinville, Washington, and Congregation Kol Shalom on Bainbridge Island, Washington. His book about the Cairo Genizah will be published by Jewish Lights Publishing next fall.
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Nice drash.
But.
Tenses like future present and past are not a feature of biblical Hebrew. Instead there are the aspects Imperfect and Perfect and the Participle.
To argue that "you will not covet" is a promise rather than a command makes sense even within that framework, but.
Commandments 6-9 use the same form "lo ", instead of the usual form for a negative commandment: "al ." So why are those not promises if 10 is? Or why is 10 a promise if those aren't?
I would offer my study partner's reading of the tenth commandment as an explanation to the problem you raise. That whether it is coveting your neighbor's possessions, or your neighboring tribes' gods, coveting can be the cause of transgression of all the other 9.
It is also not the only commandment regarding mindset given - love your neighbor as yourself, and do not hate your brother in your heart both come to mind.