Understanding Your Middos - 33 Eliminating Envy

The depth of envy

The third bad middah which comes from the element of water is chemdah (envy).

Envy is not only a bad middah, but it is openly prohibited in the Torah – “You shall not covet your friend’s wife.” We are not allowed to covet another’s wife or possessions.

The Sages say that there are two things that a person has a natural envy for: stealing and adultery. There are two kinds of envy – an envy for money, and an envy for adultery.

The depth behind envy is when a person actualizes his desire. We see from the Halacha that if one steals something but pays the person back, he is liable for coveting, but if he steals and doesn’t pay it back, he is liable for the prohibition of stealing. What is the difference between stealing and coveting?

When a person steals, he is only desiring the monetary value of something; thus, he steals it entirely and doesn’t pay it back. But when a person steals something and gives the person back its worth in money – he only wanted the item he stole, not its value.

When a person envies something, he wants the actual thing he envies and nothing more. When he steals it, he is guilty for the prohibition of envy – because he has actualized his desire. He has taken something beyond him and made it into a part of himself, which is evil.

The depth of envy is that a person wants to take something he desires and have it all for himself, so he takes it.

How envy can be good

When is it good to have envy, and when is it evil?

Eretz Yisrael is called “Eretz Chemdah” – a land of envy. This is the good kind of envy – why?

Envy can be good if one wants to benefit only partially from what he wants. But when a person wants something in its entirety – like someone who steals an item – his envy is evil, because he wants it all.

This is the depth behind why Moshe was not allowed into Eretz Yisrael. Although it is good to desire Eretz Yisrael – and Eretz Yisrael is indeed a “land of envy” – that is only when a person wants to simply benefit from it, but not if the person wants it in all its entirety. Moshe wanted more than to simply benefit from Eretz Yisrael partially – he wanted all of it. For this, he wasn’t allowed into Eretz Yisrael.

We are supposed to desire and want Eretz Yisrael, but not because we should want to have it, but so that we can benefit from it alone. This can only be if we want to become like a tool in order to benefit from it (and not more than that).  If we want anything more than this – like if we want it to be totally ours – such a desire is incorrect; it is chemdah. We need to desire Eretz Yisrael in the right way, which is by being merely a tool for it.

Another kind of good envy we are supposed to have is toward the Torah – we should envy the Torah. But this envy is good only if we want to become a tool that will accept the Torah, so we can benefit from it – and not because we just want to have it. If we just want to have it, that is evil envy. But if we want to become a tool and a container that will be able to accept it, that shows we are interested in benefitting from the Torah, which is the good kind of envy to have.

How do we become a tool for Eretz Yisrael, and for learning the Torah? Emunah is the tool that can hold everything!