coveting

[cellio]

Our torah-study group got to the last of the ten commandments on Saturday. In English it's usually rendered "do not covet your neighbor's wife; do not covet [property, livestock, etc]". In the first version, in Exodus, the same word is used for "covet" both times -- "tachmod". In the repetition in Deuteronomy, the first is "tachmod" and the second is "titaveh".

"Titaveh" is the word that's used when the people demand meat instead of manna in the wilderness. It's a strong, negative, feeling. JPS translates it as "crave", which fits the incident with the quail. The people were so persistent and demanding that God rained down dead quail upon them until they were waist-deep in it. The people gorged on it and a lot of them died.

It's possible that the second phrase, which lists a bunch of things not to covet (or crave), is just amplification, as it ends with "nor anything that is his". If it's not amplification, and we're meant to see these as two ideas -- don't covet the wife and don't crave the property -- it's striking that the property gets a sterner warning than the wife. I mean, isn't it more important to protect people from unwanted attention than to protect property? Or is it, instead, saying that craving property is bad and merely desiring another's spouse is equally bad? Could be either, both, or neither -- there are 70 faces to the torah. So nothing deep here, but the question grabbed me.

This is the sort of thing I'd expect Rashi to have something to say about, but he just says the words are synonyms. Gee, thanks. :-)

Comments

[cellio]

Consider this: no matter how many times I walk next door and talk to my neighbor's car...no matter how many nice things I say to it, no matter even if I wash it and wax it and polish the hubcaps...that car is never going to get up of its own volition and park itself in my driveway.

Excellent point.

We are also commanded to "not place a stumbling-block before the blind", which isn't just about physical sight and barriers. When adultery happens both people sin, so your luring the neighbor's wife over to your place would be leading her into sin as well as sinning yourself.

"Lo tachmod/titaveh" is arguably the only commandment strictly involving feelings. ("Arguably" because we are also commanded to love God -- but there it's followed up with some specifics.) In general, Judaism doesn't hold you accountable for your fantasy life if you keep it in check and don't express it. This is an exception.