I’ve never thought of myself as either a greedy bugger or a particularly jealous soul. Moses came down from Mount Sinai where he received the Ten Commandments according to the biblical account in Exodus. This occurred during the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt and after they were freed from servitude from the yoke of Pharaoh Ramesses the Great. The story describes Moses ascending the mountain where God gave him the commandments written on two stone tablets. Mount Sinai is described as being shrouded in smoke, fire, and thunder during this divine encounter. Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights (a popular timeframe for reflection in those days, apparently) on the mountain, receiving not just the Ten Commandments but also additional laws and instructions for the people of Israel. This event is central to both Jewish and Christian traditions and is considered one of the foundational moments in the formation of the covenant between God and the Israelites.
The Ten Commandments, as recorded in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:4-21, are:
1. You shall have no other gods before Me (Worship only the one true God…an obvious starting place…),
2. You shall not make idols (Do not create or worship images, statues, or representations of God…that leads to all sorts of silly distortions),
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain (Do not misuse God’s name or use it irreverently…no cussing, damn it!),
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Set aside the seventh day of the week for rest and worship, in the tradition of the Book of Genesis),
5. Honor your father and your mother (Respect and care for your parents…obviously written by parents with rebellious offspring),
6. You shall not commit murder (all the way down at #6???),
7. You shall not commit adultery (Be faithful in marriage…who says women had no say in history…),
8. You shall not steal (Do not take what belongs to others…a very ill-defined but slippery slope),
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Do not lie or give false testimony, especially in legal matters…but I guess its OK in politics, right?),
10. You shall not covet (Do not desire what belongs to others…their house, spouse, servants, animals, or possessions). In its full biblical form, this tenth commandment reads: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17).
I’m a big believer in most of these Commandments. So long as you agree the one true God is of our own choosing, I am OK with 1-3. I mean, we all cuss a little, or in the case of us Wall Street types, perhaps a lot, but we tend to moderate it in whatever ways we can think of. Take for instance “Jesus H. Christ”. There we have what sounds like a case of taking one of the Holy Trimity’s name in vain, but by throwing in an obscure middle initial (The real Jesus was NMI, I believe) you have a rule book palliative that keeps you out of the Mortal Sin category. In Catholic teaching, breaking any of the Ten Commandments can constitute a mortal sin, but it depends on three conditions being met. It must be a grave matter. The act itself must be seriously wrong (all Ten Commandments, by definition, involve a grave matter). There must be full knowledge. The person must know it’s seriously sinful, hence the beginning of of the “I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’” defense. And then, there must be deliberate consent. The person must freely choose to commit the act. If all three conditions are present, breaking a commandment would be considered a mortal sin, which Catholic doctrine teaches separates the soul from God’s grace and requires sacramental confession for forgiveness. Not a lot of Wall Streeter’s go to confession, so loopholes are their primary form of salvation. I will skip over Commandments 4-9 by virtue of the Fifth Amendment, which may be getting Church and State a bit too close for comfort, but what I really want to discuss is Commandment #10.
Coveting is such a flaky realm. Covet means to have an intense desire or longing for something that belongs to someone else, often accompanied by envy or resentment. The key aspects of coveting are yearning for what others have (wanting their possessions, relationships, status, or circumstances), going beyond normal wanting (it’s more intense than simply wishing you had something similar), focus on what specifically belongs to others, not just wanting a nice house, but wanting house. It also often involves envy, feeling resentful that they have it and you don’t. There are related but different concepts like admiration, aspiration, jealousy, and fear of losing what you have to someone else. In the biblical context of the Tenth Commandment, coveting is considered problematic because it can lead to other sins (theft, adultery, dishonesty) and represents a discontentment with what God has provided. It focuses the heart on material things and others’ circumstances rather than gratitude and contentment.
By far, the thing I possess of greatest value to me is my relationship with Kim. I word that very carefully because we all understand that I do not possess Kim, but I do think it’s fair, given that I’m her husband of almost 20 years, to say that I possess a unique relationship with Kim. The balance to that is the Kim possesses a unique relationship with me. I sort of think that’s how marriage is intended to work. However, unless you happen to be stranded on a desert island, marriage is not intended to provide relationship exclusivity. Kim has her family, her friends and her music, all of which occupy meaningful space in her sensibilities. I have my other things too, mostly what I would suggest is family (in fairness, Kim shares some of my family, like my kid and grandkids, with me), friends and work. We both share a good amount of friend overlap, but probably not more than 85% since some friends are more historically rooted than our relationship. And while Kim tell me about her singing and I tell her about my work, we each have that province pretty much to ourselves. What that all means is that there is some portion, perhaps 25% of each others’ being that is shared with others. There are times when that feels normal and minimal, and there are times when that feels overwhelmingly encroaching. Am I being covetous and committing a mortal sin?
Right at this moment, Kim just returned from 5 days in NYC for what I would call friend things. She brought back her cabaret pal, Lennie, who is a big part of her musical context. She also currently in rehearsals for both a musical she is staging and the full Encore show for which she is stage directing and preparing for early November. That means that in the current timeframe her share of mind that involves something other than me is probably more like 80-90%.. She might debate the exact allocation, but would likely agree that it is outsized and majority controlled by those needs. I feel like that happens to me much less than it does to Kim these days, though I suspect that was reversed in working days gone by. That said, I head off soon for three weeks of work in NYC, so I better not push that notion right now. I lay this out because I am feeling somewhat neglected these days as I prepare to depart and I do not do a great job of hiding that. I covet more of her attention. About the only thing I can do is try and shake it off and be more stoic about it, trusting that it is a temporary state and that I will soon go back to just sharing a part of Kim rather than losing Kim to other interests she may have and going to hell in the process.