One year, during winter break, I felt very proud of myself. I came up with a super idea – to take my daughter on a three-day trip to Florida, just the two of us. I was so excited as we packed our bags, and I felt so proud that I had decided to do something so special.
On the way to the airport, though, my mood changed a bit. I found out that a relative of mine was doing the exact same thing.
And that made me upset.
If we think about it rationally, that’s strange. Why should I be upset? Why should that relative’s vacation with his daughter have anything to do with mine?
Of course, this is not rational. But it’s human nature.
A bit later that winter, it was Tu B’Shvat, and I was not able to be home. Every year, we have a special family event on the night of Tu B’Shvat, but that year, I had to be away.
At one point during the evening, a relative sent out to one of my family chat groups pictures of that relative’s Tu B’Shvat celebration. And it made me upset. I felt jealous.
That doesn’t make me a bad person. It just means I’m a person. It’s human nature.
The final of the Ten Commandments, which the Jews heard at Mount Sinai, is the prohibition of לא תחמוד – not to “covet” that which somebody else has. However, as important as it is to work on not feeling jealous, it is equally important to use our common sense to avoid causing other people to become jealous.
When we feel happy and excited about something, we want to share the news, to tell people about it. In the modern era, this often means via posting on social media and chat groups. But without realizing it, we are causing other people to feel jealous. Not everybody who sees the message enjoys that which we are posting about, and so posting might be hurtful to them.
Sharing the Pain, Sharing the Joy
Often, when I speak about this topic, people jump up and ask me, “Come on, Rabbi, you really think everyone is jealous??? Are all people that bad – they can’t see somebody else happy without being jealous of them???”
To answer this question, let’s return to the time of Matan Torah at Mount Sinai.
The Torah tells us that when Hashem revealed Himself to the Jewish People, they looked up and saw כמעשה לבנת הספיר – an image of a sapphire brick – and כעצם השמיים לטוהר – the beautiful sight of the heavens.
To explain the sight of the brick, Rashi writes that G-d kept an image of a brick by the Heavenly Throne when Beneh Yisrael were slaves in Egypt and were forced to make bricks. He did this so would remember, as it were, that the Jewish Nation was suffering, in order to teach us that we always need to be mindful of the difficult plight faced by our fellow Jews. The Torah is telling us that this is how a Jew is to live – with empathy for those who are suffering.
But what about the other sight which the Jews beheld – כעצם השמיים לטוהר? What did this represent?
The work Da’at Torah explains that as hard as it is to empathize with a fellow Jew in pain, it’s even harder to share in a fellow Jew’s joy. And so just as Hashem kept with Him a brick to remind Him, as it were, of the Jews’ pain in Egypt, He also kept with Him a beautiful, magnificent image – כעצם השמיים לטוהר – to share in the people’s great moment of joy and glory, as they left Egypt and came to Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. He showed us that we must try to share not only people’s pain, but also their joy.
Why is it so hard to share people’s joy?
The Da’at Torah explains that whenever we see somebody who has something which we don’t, we feel at least a tinge of discomfort. We might – and hopefully do – smile and offer kind words, but inside, we feel some degree of uneasiness.
No, I don’t think that all people burn up inside when they see somebody with something they don’t have. But I do think that for the vast majority of people, this makes them at least a little bit uncomfortable and insecure.
When somebody sends out pictures from their vacation, sitting outside on a porch in short sleeves overlooking the ocean underneath a deep blue sky, a friend or relative sitting in his living room watching the snow falling outside will feel some degree of discomfort. When somebody sends out pictures of his or her daughter’s engagement party, a friend or relative with older unmarried children will feel some degree of discomfort. When somebody sends out pictures of his or her newly-renovated kitchen, a friend or relative with financial struggles will feel some degree of discomfort. It’s just the way people are.
Our Sages famously teach us in Pirkeh Avot, אמור מעט ועשה הרבה – “Say little, and do a lot.” This means, simply put, that we should just act, without talking about it. We are entitled to accomplish, to buy, to renovate, to travel, to celebrate and to enjoy. But we shouldn’t go around talking about it, posting about it, or sending out pictures about it. It’s simply insensitive, unnecessarily causing people to feel uneasy and insecure. Is this really what we want to do?
But even besides the issue of arousing jealousy, there are also three other reasons why we should keep our good fortune to ourselves, and not go around talking or posting about it.
1) Ego Alert!
On one occasion when I spoke about this topic, I told the class the following:
There are many temptations that I understand. I understand why people eat too much. It feels good. I understand why people like to sleep. I can even understand why people are tempted to gamble – the prospect of instantly receiving a large amount of money is exciting. I can also understand why people take drugs – it makes them feel good and gives them a temporary escape from their pain. And I can understand compulsive shopping – buying something new gives us a rush of excitement.
But there are certain vices that I just don’t understand.
I don’t understand the temptation to have tattoos. It doesn’t make sense to me that somebody would want to have a picture of a dragon running down his arm. I also don’t understand why girls would want piercings all over their face. I just don’t get it.
I told the class that I don’t get the temptation to take pictures and share them with the world. I don’t understand why people can’t just enjoy the moment, without having to post it on social media or spread it around their chat groups.
Then a boy raised his hands and said, “Rabbi, maybe it feels the way you feel when you give a class and it’s posted on learntorah.com.”
We all got a chuckle, and it was funny. But then I explained to the boy what he was really saying.
He was saying that taking pictures of our happiness and success and spreading them around makes us feel important. It makes us feel relevant. It’s basically deluding ourselves into thinking that what we’re doing is important to everyone else, which makes us feel important.
In other words, it’s all about ego.
We send around pictures of ourselves because we’re trying to feel important. That’s it.
This itself is a reason to stop talking and posting about ourselves. It’s vain. It’s childish. It’s egotistical.
If we’re mature adults, let’s ask ourselves, “Do I really need to do this to feel important? Am I so insecure that this is what I have to do?”
Yes, it’s tempting. But we should overcome this temptation.
Returning to the famous teaching אמור מעט ועשה הרבה, some explained this to mean that if אמור מעט – if we’ve restrained ourselves, and resisted the temptation to gloat, then עשה הרבה – we have already accomplished a great deal. This itself is a great achievement, because we overcame the urge to talk.
2) The Bull’s Eye on the Back
When we “overhype,” we expose ourselves to scrutiny and criticism. We put a bull’s eye on our back. We make ourselves a target.
If somebody posts pictures about himself, such as on vacation, or of a personal achievement or milestone, he’ll certainly get a great deal of happy comments congratulating him, but he is also likely to receive some nasty messages. And even if not, there is a good chance people will start talking.
“Look at this luxury vacation he took. How on earth did he afford it? Where did all that money come from?”
“The couple looks so happy…but if the girl only knew what the boy’s family is really like, she would never have agreed…”
After the Ten Commandments, G-d commanded Moshe to convey to the people a number of laws, including, ולא תעלה במעלות על מזבחי. The simple meaning of this pasuk is that it is forbidden to walk up to the altar using steps. When the kohanim needed to go to the top of the altar, they climbed up a ramp, instead of a staircase. The reason given by the Torah is אשר לא תגלה ערוותך עליו – that when walking up steps, one spreads his legs, which would be disrespectful to the altar.
However, the command of לא תעלה במעלות has been explained to mean that we should not gloat and promote ourselves, trying to “elevate” ourselves in the eyes of other people, because תגלה ערוותך – we then run the risk of having our faults exposed. Once we promote ourselves, people will find our ערווה, our unflattering qualities and embarrassing moments. If we put our success in other people’s faces, somebody will find a way to make us look bad.
Do we really want to do this to ourselves?
3) Focus!
Another problem with gloating can be seen from a different reading of the proverb, אמור מעט ועשה הרבה. It could be understood to mean that we should say little in order that we will be able to do a lot.
Simply put, talking too much about what we do distracts us from doing. If we’re focusing too much on talking or posting about ourselves, then we’re not focusing enough on the things we should be focusing on.
And at no time in history have people been as prone to distraction as they are today.
A certain schoolteacher was once sitting at home grading papers while her husband was on the computer. Suddenly, the woman started crying.
“What’s the matter?” the husband said, suddenly looking up from his screen.
The wife explained that she had given her class an assignment to write on essay answering the question, “If I could be anything in today’s world, what would be it be?” One boy, she said, wrote an essay explaining that he wished he were a smartphone.
He said that his father barely sees him or pays any attention to him. Instead, he’s always looking at his smartphone. When he wants to ask his father a question, the father ignores him, but as soon as the phone rings, his father rushes to answer the call or read the message. And so the boy wished he were a smartphone, so his father would pay attention to him.
“That’s crazy!” the husband said. “I can’t believe it. Who is this kid?”
Wiping away her tears, the wife replied, “Our son.”
Posting online and reading comments makes us feel busy and accomplished, when we’re actually wasting our time. It consumes time and attention that could be used far more constructively doing other things.
We should curb the urge to publicize everything if for no other reason than to redirect our focus back onto עשה, onto doing things that really matter, that are really important, and that are really meaningful.
We Need to Know!!
At this point, somebody might innocently ask, “Am I really supposed to read people’s minds to know that they would feel jealous, or uncomfortable, by what I say and post? Is this really my problem?”
The answer is absolutely yes!!
As we saw, the Torah forbids walking up to the altar on steps, as this would be disrespectful to the altar. Rashi comments that this command shows us how sensitive we need to be to the feelings of other people. If we are to be careful not to disrespect the altar, which is made of stones that have no feelings, then certainly, we must be careful not to disrespect human beings, who have very fragile feelings that can easily be hurt.
To this we might add: is there really that much of a difference between walking up stairs and walking up a ramp? Would we have on our own thought that walking up steps is disrespectful, but walking up a ramp is ok? Is this something that any of us would have known?
No, and this is precisely the Torah’s point: we need to know!
We need to know how our words and actions affect other people.
We need to know how people will react to the things we say and the things we post.
We need to know that there are people who do not enjoy the blessings that we enjoy, and they might be hurt by our giddiness and overhyping, by our talking about the happy things going on in our lives.
We need to know that these things should be kept to ourselves, and not put it on display and in front of people’s faces.
For many people, this might be hard. When we feel happy and excited, our instinct is to talk about it – and, in today’s world, to post about it. But there’s actually a pretty simple solution!
Earlier, we mentioned that at the time of Matan Torah, the Jewish People saw that Hashem had an image of a brick by His throne, which served as a “reminder” of their slave labor in Egypt. We might wonder, what was this brick doing there seven weeks after the Jews left Egypt?
We understand that throughout the years they were in Egypt, Hashem kept a brick by His side to empathize with their plight. But they saw this brick there at the time they received the Torah – 50 days later! Why was the brick still there?
The answer might be that the Torah is telling us to remember the hard times even when they have long passed. Even long after the Jews left Egypt, we need to remember the suffering.
If a person is happily married, he should try to remember what it was like during the difficult bachelorhood years, when he felt lonely, when he felt rejected, when he was going on date after date with nothing working.
If a person is gainfully employed, or has a successful business, he should try to remember what it was like when he was first starting out – the anxiety, the stress, the barriers that stood in his way, all the blood, sweat and tears he put in on his way to success.
We should never forget the hard times, even if it’s been many years. If we remember how things used to be, we’ll be more sensitive to the feelings of other people who are still there, and less likely to unwittingly cause them pain by putting our success and happiness right in front of their faces.
Just Don’t Look!!
In conclusion, it is important to briefly address the person on the other side – the person who sees other people’s success and good fortune, the one stuck in New York during winter break and finds himself or herself forced to look at pictures of friends and relatives enjoying warm, sunny, exotic vacations.
Our message to this person is very simple: You’re not forced to look at those pictures!
Many commentators raise the question of how the Torah could command לא תחמוד, that we must not feel jealous of other people. How can we control our feelings and emotions?
The Malbim answers, very simply, that we shouldn’t be looking. If we don’t see what other people have, we won’t be jealous of it.
In other words, we are well advised to just mind our own business, and stop looking around and paying attention to what other people have and what other people are doing.
Nobody’s forcing us to spend our time looking at what other people post. Nobody’s forcing us to keep track of what cars people are driving or what clothing people are wearing. If we don’t want to feel upset, we should just stop looking.
This is the message of לא תחמוד. It tells us to keep our success to ourselves, and to stop paying such close attention to other people’s success. This way, we will be able to enjoy what we have without wasting time telling people about it, and without worrying about what they have that we don’t.