This sheet on Exodus 20 was written by Jeremy Benstein for 929 and can also be found here
A multi-billion dollar industry whose purpose was to get you to murder, commit adultery, steal, or perjure yourself—would be immoral, if not downright illegal. These are commandments 6, 7, 8 and 9. Regarding #10, though, there is just such an industry—the advertising industry. It is designed to get you to want things you don’t have, to covet. And yet the captains of this industry are handsomely rewarded, and the ‘products’ of this industry (ads) are evident in every corner of our social, cultural and even private spaces.
“Thou Shalt Not Covet.” It sounds so Puritan. An old-fashioned word perhaps, but the psychic state of continually wanting more, of perennial dissatisfaction with what we have, and therefore with who we are (for the two have become pathologically connected), is the driving force of our consumer society. Once, greed was bad; avarice, cupidity – these were vices to be rooted out. They threatened social relations, the common good, and the spiritual well-being of the individual. But the advance of the free market economy, based on the profit motive coupled with ‘the invisible hand’, marked a sea change: act solely for your own material betterment, and the mechanisms of supply and demand will insure benefit for all. Greed has been rehabilitated, and in the guise of ‘enlightened’ self-interest is now quite respectable. Covetousness is nursed and cultivated by our consumptive culture.
To be sure, the Biblical injunction expressed in the tenth commandment “lo tachmod” is framed as an individual precept condemning coveting the property of one’s neighbor. But what does that mean? Does the mandate here concern inward feelings or outward behavior? It seems unreasonable to legislate desire or its avoidance, but the improper actions that stem from covetousness, theft and adultery, have already been proscribed in previous commandments. Maimonides explains that coveting here refers to the active scheming to get the desired object, putting undue pressure on the owner to sell—even if you end up paying full value. The actual act need not be illegal, but the intention and the method of its implementation are flagged as immoral and destructive.
We see this in advertising. Social historians note a change in American advertising after World War I, from the conveying of product information to the manufacturing of desire. The American public was too frugal; they weren’t consuming enough. To rev up the engines of the economy, people had to start buying more. Products were associated with images, glamour, personal identity, and not just the functions they performed. Marketing moved from fulfilling needs to creating them.
In our consumer society, coveting goods, that is to say, keeping up with the Jones’s, doesn’t mean robbing them, just buying as much as them. In a densely populated world such as ours, the simple act of (continually) wanting more is destructive of self, other and the world. In fact, if the entire world were to adopt the lifestyle of the average American, we would need four more planets just to get by.
The Greco-Jewish philosopher of antiquity, Philo, in fact generalizes “lo tachmod” to apply to all forms of covetousness, including greed for money, hunger for honor, sexual lust, hedonism, and gluttony. He re-emphasizes the emotional states associated with insatiable desires and the importance of spiritual work. This inner work is a necessary first step towards the ultimate goal of transforming society, from its obsession with quantity to striving for quality, from outer acquisition to inner disposition, and from merely having to truly being.
“Thou Shalt Not Covet.” It sounds so Puritan. An old-fashioned word perhaps, but the psychic state of continually wanting more, of perennial dissatisfaction with what we have, and therefore with who we are (for the two have become pathologically connected), is the driving force of our consumer society. Once, greed was bad; avarice, cupidity – these were vices to be rooted out. They threatened social relations, the common good, and the spiritual well-being of the individual. But the advance of the free market economy, based on the profit motive coupled with ‘the invisible hand’, marked a sea change: act solely for your own material betterment, and the mechanisms of supply and demand will insure benefit for all. Greed has been rehabilitated, and in the guise of ‘enlightened’ self-interest is now quite respectable. Covetousness is nursed and cultivated by our consumptive culture.
To be sure, the Biblical injunction expressed in the tenth commandment “lo tachmod” is framed as an individual precept condemning coveting the property of one’s neighbor. But what does that mean? Does the mandate here concern inward feelings or outward behavior? It seems unreasonable to legislate desire or its avoidance, but the improper actions that stem from covetousness, theft and adultery, have already been proscribed in previous commandments. Maimonides explains that coveting here refers to the active scheming to get the desired object, putting undue pressure on the owner to sell—even if you end up paying full value. The actual act need not be illegal, but the intention and the method of its implementation are flagged as immoral and destructive.
We see this in advertising. Social historians note a change in American advertising after World War I, from the conveying of product information to the manufacturing of desire. The American public was too frugal; they weren’t consuming enough. To rev up the engines of the economy, people had to start buying more. Products were associated with images, glamour, personal identity, and not just the functions they performed. Marketing moved from fulfilling needs to creating them.
In our consumer society, coveting goods, that is to say, keeping up with the Jones’s, doesn’t mean robbing them, just buying as much as them. In a densely populated world such as ours, the simple act of (continually) wanting more is destructive of self, other and the world. In fact, if the entire world were to adopt the lifestyle of the average American, we would need four more planets just to get by.
The Greco-Jewish philosopher of antiquity, Philo, in fact generalizes “lo tachmod” to apply to all forms of covetousness, including greed for money, hunger for honor, sexual lust, hedonism, and gluttony. He re-emphasizes the emotional states associated with insatiable desires and the importance of spiritual work. This inner work is a necessary first step towards the ultimate goal of transforming society, from its obsession with quantity to striving for quality, from outer acquisition to inner disposition, and from merely having to truly being.
(יד) לֹ֥א תַחְמֹ֖ד בֵּ֣ית רֵעֶ֑ךָ לֹֽא־תַחְמֹ֞ד אֵ֣שֶׁת רֵעֶ֗ךָ וְעַבְדּ֤וֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ֙ וְשׁוֹר֣וֹ וַחֲמֹר֔וֹ וְכֹ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר לְרֵעֶֽךָ׃ (פ)
(14) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house: you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
Dr. Jeremy Benstein is the managing editor of 929-English, and is the author of a new book about the Hebrew language, "Hebrew Roots, Jewish Routes: A Tribal Language in a Global World" (Behrman House, 2019).
929 is the number of chapters in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, the formative text of the Jewish heritage. It is also the name of a cutting-edge project dedicated to creating a global Jewish conversation anchored in the Hebrew Bible. 929 English invites Jews everywhere to read and study Tanakh, one chapter a day, Sunday through Thursday together with a website with creative readings and pluralistic interpretations, including audio and video, by a wide range of writers, artists, rabbis, educators, scholars, students and more. As an outgrowth of the web-based platform, 929 English also offers classes, pop-up lectures, events and across North America. We invite you to learn along with us and be part of our dynamic community.
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