Avot277

6:
Cupidity, or envy, the first characteristic that is mentioned in our present mishnah, indicates a gnawing discontent in someone that is caused by their wanting what someone else already has – be that a physical possession or a character trait or some spiritual state: anything possessed by another. Desire, however, is not dependent on what another person possesses. Desire is a gnawing discontent which is born within us when we want something – anything – that we do not have. When kept under strict control desire can be a most positive attribute. The midrash [Batei Midrashot 2:13:5] sees even sexual desire being a necessary and worthy attribute in human nature for without it no human being would be born.

7:
But when gnawing desire is left uncontrolled it can be devastating. The Torah [Numbers 11:4-6] tells how people with an uncontrolled appetite caused havoc among the Israelites in the desert:

Moses complains to God in his desperation:

But God promises the ungrateful people meat to eat:

And when God provides the meat – quails – the people set to with a ravenous desire which displeases God intensely:

The name of the place, Graves of Desire, says it all.

8:
The sages were well aware that desire can start with something small, but if it is not kept under strict control it will develop and grow into enormous proportions. In the Gemara [Sanhedrin 99b]

To be continued.

There is yet another comment which has reached me concerning the apostacy of Elisha ben-Avuyah. Yiftah Shapir writes:

It seems to me that the discussion over the past few weeks concerning Elisha ben-Avuyah goes round the axis of being for an against the view of Milton Steinberg concerning Elisha. But there is another opinion: Professor Yehuda Liebes published a complete book which was all scientific research into Elisha. The book, "Elisha's Sin" (Jerusalem, Akademon Press, 1990, claims that Elisha's real sin was not apostacy, nor Sadduceanism, nor Hellenism nor dualistic Gnosticism as many scholars think, but a much deeper sin, the sin of hubris [overweening pride – SR]. This is the sin, according to Professor Liebes, which caused the Bat Kol to say "Repent, backsliding children – except one". Professor Liebes analyses in great detail all the sources for the stories about Elisha – in the Mishnah and in the Talmuds (including the well-known story in Ĥagigah chapter 2 about the four who entered the orchard) and their variations in the Talmud of Eretz-Israel and other midrashim (the story of Elisha and the prostitute and others). This is not a work of fiction, but of research. His conclusions are very different from the usual ones and apparently caused dissention. But his claims are well founded and even those who disagree have to deal with his points.

I respond:

This book has already been mentioned by Gideon Weisz. See Avot 275.

Discussion on this topic is now closed.