How to avoid coveting?
And he presents us again, using the classic Spanish translations, the question: Can we control desire and greed? Which forces us to ask ourselves: What is coveting and what is wrong with it? Is greed a feeling or an action?
In the book of Shemot it says: Do not covet [I tajmod it] your neighbor's house; Do not covet your neighbor's wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor (Shemot 20:14). In Devarim (in the restatement of the Ten Commandments), he says: Do not covet your neighbor's wife; and do not long [I titaved it] your neighbor's house, nor his field, nor his male or female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor (Devarim 5:18).
This indicates that both “craving” and “coveting” are undesirable actions. Where do we learn that if a person yearns it will lead to greed? Because it says don't covet, don't long. Where do we learn that if a person covets, it leads to theft? As it is written: They will covet fields and steal (Micha 2:2). The desire, taava, is in the heart, as it is written, "Your soul will long to eat meat" (Devarim 12:20), and the longing, jimud, has to do with action, as it is written, "You shall not covet the silver and gold on them [their idols] and shall take it for yourself" (Devarim 7:25).
Whoever covets his companion's servant, house, utensils or any article of his that can be sold, pressuring him until he agrees to part with it, even though she pays him well for it, has violated the negative mitzvah of “Do not covet”… But , you are not responsible for this charge until you actually take possession of the item you coveted. This is the power of the text. You will not covet the silver and gold that is on them and take it for yourself, which implies covetousness in action. (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, 158th century Negative Mitzvah No. XNUMX.)
One version of the Ten Commandments says I tajmod it [“do not covet] and the other I titaved it [“do not long”], but they both mean the same thing. (Sefer Mitzvot Gadol, 13th century)
It is known that coveting something is a matter of the heart. The essence of this mitzvah is that one must train oneself to absolutely renounce all hope of ever acquiring things that belong to another person, whether real estate, livestock, inert objects, etc. heart. If someone coveted them, one would ultimately commit murder to possess them oneself… Regarding this, the Talmud comments that “if someone covets something that is not suitable for him, he will end up losing even that which was suitable for him.”… However However, there are times when greed is a character trait that is permissible. Coveting the opportunity to perform certain mitzvot of the Torah is not only permissible but praiseworthy (Bahya ben Asher, 13th-14th centuries).
«Do not covet your neighbor's house; "Do not covet your neighbor's wife, or your neighbor's servant, or your ox, or your donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Many wonder about this commandment: how is it possible that a person does not desire, in his heart, something that is so attractive to the eyes, when the heart desires (covets) for itself, according to its nature, against a person's will? It seems, as it is written in one of the comments on the verse «And you will love .A. your God with all your heart" (Devarim. 6: 5), that nothing would have been missing from the text if it were written "And you shall love .A. your God with your heart”; Why do we need “with all your heart”? The intention is that his heart is filled with the love of .A. That is, there must be in your heart only love for .A., and not so much worldly desire as love for God. For if your heart is filled to the brim with love for .A., it is impossible for you to covet any of the delights of this world, because there will be no room in your heart to desire anything outside of God. Like a cup that is full and cannot receive another drop (Hactav Vehakabalá, XNUMXth century, adapted in Iturei Torah).
The Midrash, Mechilta, Yitro, Parsha no. 8, points out that one does not rape lo tajmod unless there is a concrete action by the coveter. There are three opinions among the Rishonim -the great wise men who created jurisprudence between the 25th and XNUMXth centuries- about what type of action is necessary. Tosafot, Sanhedrin XNUMXb, sv Me'ikara, rule that one would not violate I tajmod it if a person covets an item from another individual and acquires it by paying for it. According to Tosafot (see Tosafot, Baba Metzia 5b, sv B'lo Dami) the prohibition of I tajmod it it is simply an additional violation that one violates if one steals an item one covets. Rambam, Hilchot Gezelah, 1:9, states that if someone uses high-pressure tactics to convince another person to sell him an item, he violates the prohibition of I tajmod it, even if you pay for the item.
Ra'avad, ad loc., agrees with Rambam that one violates I tajmod it even if you pay for the item. However, he maintains that if the seller explicitly states that he wants to make the sale after being pressured, there is no violation. Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 359:10, codifies the Rambam's opinion.
The topic is very complex and the Hebrew terms do not have an exact equivalent in the Spanish language, and as we saw, not all exegetes differentiate between them.
So we will end this note by analyzing one of the concerns of modern man: the greed of another man's wife.
The Torah, in both Parshas Yitro and Parshas Vaetchanan, mentions the prohibition of I tajmod it in reference to coveting another man's wife (eshet reehu). Rambam, however, lists eshet reehu in the context of I titaved it and not I tajmod it (see Hilchot Gezelah 1:9-10). Why does the Rambam assign eshet reehu a I titaved it when the Torah specifically assigns eshet reehu a I tajmod it?
Minjat Jinuj no. 39, suggests that since the prohibition of eshet reehu is explicitly listed in the verse regarding I tajmod it and it is only inferred with respect to I titaved it, Rambam only considered it necessary to enumerate eshet reehu with respect to I titaved it 359:19, suggests that the reason Rambam lists eshet reehu in the context of I titaved it is that to violate the tajmod in eshet reehu, one would have to force another person to divorce his wife and then marry her. to rape I titaved it by eshet reehu, one would simply have to plan how to coerce someone into divorcing his wife. Since the scenario I titaved it It's much more likely, Rambam just coded that situation. However, if a person were to succeed in forcing someone to divorce his wife in order to marry her, he would certainly also violate the prohibition of I tajmod it.
In summary: The Torah gives us a general rule in the Ten Commandments that at first reading seems theoretical, but, when analyzing the legal development of our sages, we see how it is translated into practical life and has very serious penal consequences.
Overcoming the difficulties of translation, the conclusion that allows theory and practice to be integrated depends on the love for .A., which must be enough to control the greed for the delights of this world.
A task that, if it were easy, would have exempted the Rishonim and the Aharonim from generating practical responses in penal norms.