We are on verse eleven of chapter two. I suppose I’m using two translations together,Joseph Hertz’ss’es
R. Joshua said, The evil eye, the evil inclination and hatred of his fellow-creatures drive a man out of the world.
and Jacob Neusner’s:
R. Joshua says, “(1)Envy, (2)desire of bad things, and (3) hatred for people push a person out of the world.”
So, having taken, for the moment at any rate, the idea that what is being discussed are things that push a man out of fellowship with other people, let’s look at the first one, envy. I like that the Hebrew idiom for envy is the evil eye, as it conjures up the longing look of the envious man. Judah Goldin calls it a grudging eye, which I don’t like as much—if you are going to take the evil off it, you may as well dump the eye as well, as Mr. Neusner does.
Of course, there are also differences of interpretation about what sort of envy we are talking about, and how it comes out in people’s actions. Maimonides says that it is a passion for wealth; Rabbit Nathan says that we are talking about reputation, that “even as no man wishes that his wife and children should be held in ill repute, so should no man wish that his fellow’s wife and his fellow’s children be held in ill repute.” I like that take on envy, that we envy another person’s reputation as much (perhaps) as his money. And, of course, that it winds up being all about one-downing the other guy.
Rabbi Jonah talks out the process by which an envious person is driven from the world: the grudging thoughts consume the man, he cannot work or study for thought of his fellow’s possessions, he is impatient and short-tempered, and eventually his body and mind are ruined. Rabbi David the Prince adds that “nothing satisfies a grudging eye” it is not in its nature to be satisfied.
So. Where I might start by thinking that envy was a matter of this world, of the material things, what we are heading to is an understanding of envy as taking us out of this world. It’s a distraction from the things that actually exist, to fantasies of things that do not. And if there is a benefit, perhaps, in leaving behind this world for study of the Divine (and R. Joshua doesn’t seem so sure about that anyway) surely there is no benefit in being driven from the world by longings for things you will never have, by focusing on what you wish that other people did not have, by desires that are unsatisfied and unsatisfiable. In the world, you relate to people as they are, with their attainments, their achievements and their acquisitions. But when you look at those people through the evil eye of envy, you take yourself out of their world and away from them. I think he’s right about that.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.