Masechet Avot, Perek Dalet, Mishnah Kaf Alef. Mishnah says, Rabbi Elazar HaKappar said: “Jealousy, desire, a desire for enjoyment and pleasure, and lastly, that constant search and craving for honor remove a person from this world.” Our rabbis understand that these three things—jealousy, pleasures, and a constant search for honor—could debilitate a person’s health to such an extent that he’s going to die young.
Lo Aleinu (God forbid), jealousy. A person who’s jealous of other people sees their possessions, sees what they have, and has that constant anxiety to keep up with them, to stay on their level. That anxiety is going to lead him to health problems. It’s going to lead a person to have a tremendous amount of health problems, health issues, and it’ll shorten his life because of the anxiety of having to keep up with that one, purchase this, and work harder on this. It’s a never-ending chase for material possessions that a person has to try and eliminate from his life, or else it’ll take him down.
Next was desire. A person who looks at this world as simply a way to enjoy is going to indulge too much in eating, drinking, and relations. He’s going to look at this world as just a constant way to enjoy his own body. And that destroys a person’s body. If he’s only looking to enjoy and he’s not looking for what’s beyond that: chokhmah, wisdom, putting purpose to his life, eventually a lack of purpose and abusing his body are going to lead to him passing away young, Lo Aleinu.
And lastly, honor. A person who’s always looking for honor is going to feel like people aren’t honoring him enough. He’s never going to feel satiated, never going to feel satisfied with people honoring him. And he’s never going to admit it, so he’s going to suffer silently. He’s going to be humiliated that people aren’t honoring him correctly, but he’s not going to tell anybody. And that anxiety as well is going to cause him health problems, and it could cause an early demise.
So they remove a person from olam hazeh, from this world, but they also remove a person from the world to come. A person who’s involved in jealousy, a constant search for pleasure, and a craving for honor has a tremendous amount of association with averot (transgressions). A person who fails to control his jealousy, work on his middot (character traits), or refrain from pursuing pleasure to such an extent is always yearning for the next level of honor. All these things are going to lead to a person committing many averot and, Lo Aleinu, he would lose not only his share in this world, but a share in the world to come as well.