פרשת קרח וענייני קנאה
In this week’s Parsha the Torah tells us about the dreadful mistake Korach and his followers made. Because of this terrible mistake, Korach and all of his followers were violently and miraculously terminated. Chazal teach us that Korach’s sin emanated from the trait of jealousy. Korach envied all of Moshe’s relatives who received important positions. Chazal further explain how the trap of jealousy is so dangerous that when a person falls in, no matter how smart he is, he can never escape. We find that Korach was extremely intelligent and a powerful prophet as well, yet all this did not help him when he was overtaken by the pangs of jealousy. Korach’s bad middos led him to the depths of stupidity, and he even reached the point where he seemed to deny the truth of the Torah. We find that Korach approached Moshe with such questions, “If a Tallis is completely dyed with the techelet color, do the strings need to be techelet as well”? This question is preposterous. Hashem says in the Torah that every Tallis requires strings of Techellet. Did Korach think that he could outsmart God and come up with a scenario which god didn’t think of? Furthermore, he was able to sway the hearts of 250 of the smartest and holiest people of the generation by invoking in them the same feelings of jealousy that he had fallen prey to. We see how far a person who is in the throws of jealousy can fall.
Chazal in their wisdom taught us that jealousy, lust, and honor take a person out of this world. According to most commentaries, Chazal are not only referring to the next world, but to this world as well. The Rambam in his explanation on this Mishna says that a person who possesses this dangerous trait, can never really grow spiritually because he will always be obsessed with his unquenchable thirst for other peoples’ belongings or good attributes and never have the presence of mind to concentrate on his own spiritual growth. But even in this world jealousy is a guaranteed recipe for a person to remain miserable as the verse in Mishle says, “Jealousy rots a person’s bones”. This poisonous trait actually causes a person to physically decay by giving him no peace and contentment and therefore causes his very health to wane. The Orchos Tzadikim adds that a person becomes so embittered by focusing on all the things that he doesn’t have, that he abandons the ability to enjoy the simple pleasures of this world and even his food loses all of its taste!
The Rabenu Bachya asserts that jealousy is such an evil characteristic, that it not only brings a person out of the world if he spends his life pursuing his petty goals and never realizes them, but it even removes him from the world if he manages to fulfill his depraved fantasies. This works based on a simple principle. Chazal teach us that if a person has 100, he very soon desires 200. And this vicious cycle never stops, even until his dying day. So if a person manages to realize his sick desire of commandeering whatever it was he envied in his friend, it won’t take long before he grows tired of his new toy and desires a new one. This is the sad fate of one who falls into the green eyed lure of the Yetzer Hara.
But how, you might ask, can a person avoid the strong pull to desire other people’s worldly and spiritual possessions? Yet again, Rabenu Bachya comes to the rescue. He begins by quoting the verse in which Moshe says to the Jewish people, “This is how you will know who the true Kohanim are, by realizing that it was Hashem who appointed them and it wasn’t from my heart”. Rabenu Bachya explains beautifully that within this verse is the key to mastering one’s passions for jealousy. One must look toward Hashem and that will be his salvation. There are two ways to do this. Firstly when a person realizes that each and every possession or talent or gift that any person on this earth acquires is only by the grace of God, and that God chose to personally endow that person with those gifts, there will be no room in his or her heart for jealousy. And the second way is to realize that one person’s gifts are useless to another person. Hashem chose to endow that particular person with those specific gifts because they alone are befitting to wield them. For example, if one person is poor and another is rich, this is not accidental. It is because Hashem wants the first person to serve Him out of poverty and the second person to serve Him out of wealth. Chazal teach us that one cannot touch another’s portion even a hair’s breadth. If so, then being envious of another is in a way a denial of God’s ability to run the world. When a person feels that “they deserved more”, they are basically claiming that Hashem didn’t know what he was doing when he decided to dole out the gifts in this world. This kind of thinking is certainly foolish and if person takes a step back and realizes the foolishness of this rationale, he will certainly be successful in overcoming his covetous sentiments.
Perhaps another practical way to overcome one’s jealousy is to realize that a person who is envious of what he doesn’t have, is in a way denying all the gifts that he does have. If a person were to seriously consider all of the wonderful endowments that Hashem has blessed him with, he would not feel disappointment at whatever good fortune his peers might have been blessed with. This can be compared to somebody who won the lottery. He would certainly not feel bad if on that same day, somebody else did well in business. Quite the contrary, he would be in such good spirits, that he would probably congratulate his fellow with all of his heart. Similarly, we should feel as if we won the lottery every day of our lives and this will help save us from the ensnarement of jealousy.
Being resentful of others talents is not appropriate even in spiritual pursuits. Even though you might ask on me that there is a Chazal which says that jealousy of righteous people is permissible, I will answer you that according to most opinions, this type of behavior is not optimal, it is merely permitted if there is no other way a person can think of to motivate himself. And even the opinion that held that it was permitted, didn’t mean that a person should wish that the person learning next to him wasn’t so successful in his learning, rather that he too should be successful. However, if one analyzes one’s heart carefully, one might be surprised to find that more often then not, it is the former type of jealousy that he is feeling rather then the latter.
I would just like to conclude with the haunting words of the Maharal. The verse we quoted at the beginning said “רקב עצמות קנאה” – “Jealousy rots the bones”. Just as a person’s bones are the very core of his being, similarly jealousy, which is such a fundamentally evil trait, physically rots his bones. However the word “Atzamos” also means personality. When a person spends his life resenting other peoples’ successes, he actually rots his personality. He completely abandons his own sense of self and his own accomplishments by spending a lifetime measuring himself against his peers. He thusly succeeds in “rotting” his sense of self completely to the point that he eradicates himself from existence, both physically and metaphysically!
May we all merit to successfully purge this evil trait from our hearts!