THIS WEEK’S DIVREI SIMCHA IS AN ESPECIALLY JOYFUL MOMENT FOR ME AS THIS IS MY FIFTH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF WRITING FOR www.chesedclub.com. I WOULD LIKE TO THANK REB SIMCHA TAMIR FOR APPROACHING ME TO WRITE FOR THIS WONDERFUL WEBSITE FIVE YEARS AGO. MAY HE HAVE MUCH SUCCESS WITH EVERYTHING HE DOES.

“And do not covet your neighbor’s wife and do not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male slaves, his female slaves, his ox, his donkey, or anything else your neighbor owns.” Devarim 5:18

“I am so jealous of this so-and-so. He has such a better life than me. Look at all he has.”

But is that really true?

Eliyahu once agreed to take Rabi Yehoshua ben Levi around with him, on one condition: R’ Yehoshua ben Levi was not allowed to ask any questions. Once he asked a question, the journey together would end.

They came to their first stop at the shack of a poor, elderly couple. The husband and wife were very kind to their two guests (of course, they did not know who the guests really were.) In the morning, Eliyahu prayed for this poor couple’s only cow to die. R’ Yehoshua ben Levi was angered when he heard this. These nice people have so little and Eliyahu asks for their only possession to die. R’ Yehoshua, remembering his promise, did not say anything.

Next stop was at a wealthy miser’s house. The host threw the two guests into the barn in the backyard while he slept in his mansion. In the morning, Eliyahu noticed the man had a wall which was about to fall and prayed that it should straighten up.

Strange occurrences continued in which Eliyahu did the exact opposite of what seemed proper in Rabi Yehoshua ben Levi’s eyes. Finally, R’ Yehoshua could not take it anymore and questioned Eliyahu’s actions. The great Prophet explained. At the first house they stopped at, the wife was supposed to die, but Eliyahu asked Hashem to spare her. She was such a kind woman who did much chesed. Hashem agreed to spare her life, but Eliyahu needed to take something else instead. Although they had so little, Eliyahu needed to take their only cow’s life so the woman would stay alive.

Regarding the wealthy miser, the reason for fixing the wall was because there was a huge treasure hidden under it. If the wall fell, the man would have surely found it. The man did not deserve more riches though.

What we think is bad might actually be good and what we think is good might be bad. So when we look at what someone else has, we should not be jealous, because maybe everything he has is cursed. Want proof to this? Look in any newspaper and read about the lives of the rich and famous. How much happiness do these people really have? Everyday there is another embarrassing moment of their life which makes front page news.

You might argue though that this is not true of all of them. For example, everything seems to be going good for Derek Jeter, the short-stop from the New York Yankees. He makes more money in one game than I make the entire year and he makes front page news for hitting 3000 hits, not embarrassing himself.

While this is true, we still should not be jealous of him. For some reason, he deserves this reward in this world, but, as I recently heard from a Rabbi I was listening to (unfortunately I forgot who it was), if a baseball player makes millions of dollars to hit a little ball, how much more of a reward is there for someone who follows the Torah. We should be overjoyed when we see Derek Jeter making millions of dollars because if he makes that much, then what we will get in the World to Come is that much greater! There’s no reason to be jealous of someone who makes less than we do and, in the end, Derek Jeter and any other superstar will have much, much less than us. If anything, he should be jealous of us.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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