• Table For Five

How can the Torah command what we feel inside?

Table for Five: Shavuot

In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Edited by Nina Litvak & Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, nor his wife, his man-servant, his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” -Exodus 20:14

Baruch C. Cohen
Civil Trial Attorney

The Sin of Wanting Another Man’s Life

Shavuos and the Discipline of Inner Freedom

“You shall not covet…” — the final word at Sinai, yet perhaps the most difficult to live.

Murder is an act. Theft is an act. Even false witness is an act. But coveting lives in silence—in the private chambers of the heart where no court can reach and no witness can testify.

And yet the Torah commands it.

Because Shavuos is not only about receiving the law – it is about mastering the self.

Coveting is not desire. It is distortion. It is the quiet belief that my life is incomplete because yours exists. It is the slow erosion of gratitude, the subtle rebellion against the portion God has written uniquely for me.

We do not covet oxen or donkeys. We covet lives.

His success. Her marriage. Their children. That house. That ease. That story.

And in doing so, we abandon our own.

At Sinai, God did not only give commandments—He gave identity. A voice that says: You are not lacking. You are assigned.

The cure for coveting is not suppression — it is clarity.

Clarity that what is mine is not accidental. That my struggles are not evidence of failure, but instruments of purpose. That my life, in all its unevenness, is deliberate.

Shavuos calls us back—not to what others have, but to what we are.

To stand at Sinai and hear, perhaps for the first time:

Your life is not missing anything. It is waiting for you to stop looking elsewhere and begin living it.

Elan Javanfard LMFT
Professor & Author, Pyscho-Spiritual Insights Blog

On Shavuot, we don’t just receive laws, we receive a vision for the inner life. Among the Ten Commandments, one stands out: “You shall not covet.” Not an action, but a feeling. Only Hashem could command the heart. As Voltaire famously put it, “Envy is a poison which consumes the heart.” Modern psychology echoes this. Jealousy is rarely contained. As the Orchot Tzadikim teaches, it is a gateway emotion. Once a person fixates on what is not theirs, the slope becomes slippery, pulling them toward dishonesty, violation, even destruction. Jealousy does not stay still. It spreads.

But the Ibn Ezra asks the obvious question: how can you command someone not to feel?

His answer is radical. We do not desire what we truly believe is impossible. A villager does not fantasize about marrying a princess, not because she is not beautiful, but because she is not his. The work is not suppressing desire. It is transforming perception, to internalize that what another has was never meant for me. The Sforno sharpens it further. Once you begin to covet, you have already begun to scheme.

Shavuot guides us to deepen emunah, not just that Hashem runs the world, but that my portion is precise. When that settles in, jealousy loosens its grip, and what replaces it is quieter, stronger, and far more liberating: Contentment.

Mitchell Keiter
Certified Appellate Specialist, Keiter Appellate Law

The mitzvot are often divided between those involving duties to God, and those involving duties to other human beings; the first half of the Ten Commandments are said to fit in the first category while the second half belong in the other. But Exodus 20:14 also involves a duty to *oneself*.

Pirke Avot teaches, “Who is wealthy? Someone who is satisfied with his portion.” This reminds us that true wealth derives not from an objective number of dollars. It derives from the relation between one’s dollars and one’s desires.

Dollars alone are not the solution. As Bruce Springsteen observes in “Badlands,” “Poor man wanna be rich; rich man wanna be king. And the king ain’t satisfied ‘til he rules everything.” Even a king is unhappy if he wants too much.

Far richer is George Gershwin’s Porgy, who sings “I got plenty of nothing, and nothing’s plenty for me.” He focuses not on what he lacks but what he has: “I got my gal, I got my song, got heaven the whole day long.”

There are two paths, therefore, to wealth. One is to increase one’s material assets (which is usually easier said than done). The other is to limit one’s desires. Having whatever we want may lie beyond our control. But wanting whatever we have is achievable.

And wanting whatever we have (rather than whatever online influencers tell us to want) is something we owe not only to God and other people. We owe it to ourselves.

Denise Berger
Freelance Writer

When it comes to the injunction not to covet, the Torah isn’t telling us not to notice our neighbor’s possessions or relationships or station in life.  It isn’t even telling us not to feel sadness or longing when we notice these things.  We see what’s in front of us, we feel what comes up and that’s ok.  Where the Torah gets involved is the question of what to do with those observations and feelings.

You wish your house was like your neighbor’s?  That’s generally a sign that something is off in your own home.  Focus on that.  Maybe it’s something practical, like being beautifully decorated or organized.  Even without the same budget, there are always creative tweaks that can make a difference.  Maybe it’s something intangible, like a sense of calm.  Your life will be much better served by finding ways to bring more calm into your days. 

Similarly, wishing for someone else’s wife (or husband) has the potential to create the deepest misery.  Humbly recognizing the need for change, and working on yourself in relationship, has the potential to create the greatest joy a person can ever experience. 

And obsessing about someone else’s wealth is draining because it starts from a premise that you are not enough.  No one actualizes their best self from that starting point.  Instead tune in to your own abilities, channel and maximize those. 

Coveting is essentially getting stuck in envy.  The Torah is showing us how not to get stuck.

Rabbi Avraham Greenstein
AJRCA Professor of Hebrew

The tenth commandment is at first glance a bit anti-climactic. In contrast to murder, coveting sounds like a relatively harmless transgression. Unlike the concrete and morally defiant acts of theft or adultery, coveting is merely the desire to have someone else’s property or spouse. This final commandment seems insubstantial. However, Ibn Ezra explains that it is not simply an aspirational afterthought. Rather, it encapsulates a principle that must guide our observance of all the commandments.

Ibn Ezra explores the very notion that we can be in control of what we desire. After all, can we indeed be responsible for the things we want? Ibn Ezra posits that we only desire the things we consider possible. Much like a peasant contemplating the daughter of the king, if we see something as impossible or truly out of bounds, we will not seriously entertain a desire for it. The moment we find something unthinkable, we cease to think about it. For this reason, it is not enough that we know theft, adultery, murder, etc. to be forbidden. The Tenth Commandment teaches us to regard them as impracticable and unreasonable, as entirely undesirable.

At the same time, it also informs us that it is within our power to cultivate a desire for lofty things by imagining they are within reach. We must know that it is our calling to pursue good and our purpose to be holy. This knowledge will shape our desire and elevate our self-definition. We will only covet Torah and mitzvot.

With thanks to Baruch C. Cohen, Elan Javanfard, Mitchell Keiter, Denise Berger and Rabbi Avraham Greenstein.

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