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The last of the Ten Commandments seems to ask for the impossible: control what you want. The Rambam shows, step by step, where wanting turns into a sin, and the Ibn Ezra explains how a person can stop wanting what is not his. Then a king wants a vineyard. With every source.
Most of the ten are about what you do or say. This one sounds like it is about what you want.
Can the Torah command a feeling? People have asked this for a long time, and this page brings two answers. The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Egypt, 1100s) defines exactly when wanting becomes a sin. The Ibn Ezra (Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra, Spain, 1100s) explains how a person can stop wanting. First, a clue in the wording.
The second time the Torah gives the Ten Commandments, one verb changes.
Tachmod: to covet. The Rambam reads it as wanting that ends in an act.
Titaveh: to desire. The Rambam reads it as wanting in the heart.
Two different verbs, and the Rambam counts two prohibitions: lo titaveh, "do not desire," and lo tachmod, "do not covet." The Mechilta (an early midrash on Shemot) asks whether a person breaks lo tachmod even by coveting in words, and answers from another verse with the same verb:
So lo tachmod needs an act. Then what is lo titaveh, and how do the two connect? The Rambam lays it out as a chain.
The Rambam traces how desire leads to coveting, and coveting to robbery. Step through it, and watch what is broken at each step.
The Rambam sums up the count:
So when does a person break lo tachmod? Only when he acts: when the pressure works and he takes the thing, even if he paid a high price (1:9). Lo titaveh is different. It is broken in the heart, once a person starts working out how to get what is his neighbor's (1:10). The Shulchan Aruch (the code of Jewish law by Rabbi Yosef Karo, 1500s) rules the same (Choshen Mishpat 359:10-12). And the Rambam says to go and learn from Achav and Navot.
The Rambam sends you to this chapter. The tag on each step is our own mapping to his chain. Step through it.
Our own observation: coveting is the last commandment, but in this story it comes first, and it pulls others after it: false witness, murder, and taking what is not yours. When Achan was caught taking from the spoils of Yericho, he said it in two words: וָאֶחְמְדֵם וָאֶקָּחֵם, "I coveted them, and I took them" (Yehoshua 7:21).
How can anyone stop wanting something beautiful? The Ibn Ezra answers with a parable.
Our own paraphrase: he does not have to fight the wish. It never starts, because he knows it cannot happen. The Ibn Ezra goes on: a thoughtful person must know that money and a beautiful wife do not come to a person because he is clever, only as Hashem gives them. So:
Our own summary: the Ibn Ezra reads lo tachmod as a command about the heart itself. The Rambam rules that lo tachmod needs an act and puts the heart under lo titaveh. Either way, the Ibn Ezra shows how to live far from the line. And notice his words, "happy with his portion." They echo a famous mishnah.
Ben Zoma asks four questions, and each answer turns the usual one upside down.
Our own observation: Ben Zoma does not say the rich man is the one who has the most, or even the one who has enough. He measures wealth by how a person feels about what he already has, and the verse he brings is about eating from your own work. Coveting looks the other way: at what is your neighbor's.
What the commandment does not forbid, and what is left for your rav.
You do not break lo tachmod by wanting, or even by talking about it, until you take the thing (Mechilta, Bachodesh 8; Rambam, Laws of Robbery and Lost Property 1:9). The Rambam's case is pressing the owner, through friends or requests, until he gives in (1:9, 1:12).
That is not a license for the heart. The Rambam says lo titaveh is broken in the heart alone, once a person starts planning how to get his neighbor's thing (1:10). The act is where lo tachmod begins; the plan is where lo titaveh begins.
The Gemara is discussing whether a town should replace its teacher with one who teaches more. Rava worries the new teacher will grow lazy. Rav Dimi says the rivalry will make him work harder. Our own observation: wanting to know as much as your friend is not the same as wanting his things.
You want a phone just like your friend's, a new one from the store. Is that wanting "anything that is your neighbor's"?
The Rambam's case is pressure until the owner gives in. Is one polite offer fine? Two? When does asking become pressing?
Is a price so high that the owner cannot say no a kind of pressure?
The Rambam mentions pressing through friends. What about sending someone else to make the request?
When does the feeling you get from someone else's photos become the planning the Rambam calls lo titaveh?
In one view in the Mechilta, the fifth commandment faces the tenth.
In one view in the Mechilta (an early midrash on Shemot), Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel (in some editions, Chanina) holds that the Ten Commandments were written five on each tablet, and he reads each pair across. The Sages there disagree: וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים: עֲשָׂרָה עַל לוּחַ זֶה וַעֲשָׂרָה עַל לוּחַ זֶה, "And the Sages say: ten on this tablet, and ten on that one" (Bachodesh 8:22). In his view honoring parents faces coveting:
Our own explanation: the verse says "do not covet your neighbor's wife." A man who covets another man's wife can end up taking her, and a son born that way may never know who his father is. He honors the man he thinks is his father, who is not, and his real father is a stranger to him, someone he might even curse. The coveting of one generation breaks the fifth commandment in the next.
Short answers, with sources.
Lo tachmod, the tenth commandment (Shemot 20:14). The Rambam rules that it is broken when a person pressures the owner, through friends and requests, until he sells, and then takes the thing, even for a high price (Laws of Robbery and Lost Property 1:9).
Lo tachmod is broken only by an act (Mechilta, Bachodesh 8; Rambam 1:9). But the Rambam rules that lo titaveh, "do not desire" (Devarim 5:18), is broken in the heart, once a person thinks about how he could get his neighbor's thing and his heart is drawn after it (1:10).
Shemot 20:14 says tachmod twice; Devarim 5:18 says tachmod, then titaveh. The Rambam counts them as two prohibitions: titaveh is desire in the heart, and tachmod is coveting that ends in an act. Someone who presses an owner until he buys the thing breaks both (1:12).
In 1:9 the Rambam's case is pressure: piling on friends and pressing until the owner gives in. In 1:12 he adds "or by asking them." The Raavad says that if the owner himself says "I want to sell," the prohibition does not apply. How much asking counts, and what if your friend is glad to sell, is a question for your rav.
The Ibn Ezra's answer: a villager does not covet a princess, because he knows it cannot happen. A person who knows that Hashem has forbidden him what is his neighbor's, and that he cannot take what Hashem did not give him, does not set his heart on it. He trusts Hashem to provide for him (Ibn Ezra on Shemot 20:14).
"One who is happy with his portion" (Ben Zoma, Pirkei Avot 4:1).
In a discussion about replacing a teacher with a better one, Rav Dimi of Nehardea says that "jealousy among scholars increases wisdom" (Bava Batra 21a). Our own note: wanting to grow like someone else is not wanting his things.
In one view in the Mechilta, Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel's, the tablets are read across, five and five (the Sages there hold that all ten were on each tablet). He says that whoever covets will end up fathering a son who curses his father and honors a man who is not his father (Mechilta, Bachodesh 8).
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Hebrew texts are from Sefaria: Tanach from Miqra al pi ha-Masorah (CC-BY-SA), the Mishnah and the Mishneh Torah from the Torat Emet editions, the Talmud's Hebrew and Aramaic from the William Davidson edition (CC-BY-NC), the Mechilta from the Beeri edition (Koren, 2019), and the Ibn Ezra from the Piotrkow edition. English renderings and explanations are Torah Tech originals, and any mistakes are ours. The guitar in the chain is our example, not the sources'.
This page is for learning. It is not a halachic ruling. For how these laws apply to you, ask your rav.
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