Envy: The hidden fuel that drives the world

Source: Between wisdom and love: Voices from the sources

"Jealousy among scholars increases wisdom." (Bava Batra 21a)

"Jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Anyone who loves, and does not bind jealousy with it, his love is no love. Once he is jealous, the love is complete. From here we learn that a man must be jealous for his wife, so that a complete love will be bound with her, for because of this he will not set his eyes on another woman. [Anyone who loves, and does not weave jealousy into his love - his love is no love, and if he is jealous, his love is complete, because in this way he will not cast his eyes upon another man's wife]." (Zohar, Vayechi, 733)

Video: Crazy performed by Patsy Cline.

Explanation: Flipping the script: Envy as a positive engine

The Sages turn the tables: envy is a natural force that cannot be abolished, only channeled for good. Jealousy in study pushes teachers to invest more. The Zohar even argues that jealousy is the indispensable ingredient in love to prevent indifference; it proves that the object of jealousy retains its value.

Perspective: Why the Stoics failed and envy won

The Stoic school in ancient Greece believed in chivalric, rational, and moral behavior, attracting many followers, yet its achievements remained up in the air. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor in the 2nd century CE, was a conqueror and mass murderer who practiced philosophy in his spare time, and Christianity, which began from Stoic notions of compassion and rationalism, quickly turned wealthy, murderous, and corrupt. Maybe it is better to believe in envy, and find outlets for its positive expression. "Jealousy among scholars" is what gets researchers out of bed at 4:00 a.m. Peace is a wonderful state, but envy is the mother of invention. If you aren't jealous for something, you don't really love it.

Going Deeper: The evil inclination as the fuel of life: Rabbinic midrash and Freud

In the midrash Genesis Rabbah (9:7), it is said: "'And behold, it was very good'—this is the yetzer hara (the evil inclination). But can the evil inclination be very good? Rather, if not for the evil inclination, a person would not build a house, marry, have children, or engage in commerce." It is even told (Yoma 69b) that the Sages once sought to kill the evil inclination, but saw that this led the world to stagnation and a slow death. Both understood what Freud would grasp thousands of years later: the libido, impulse, envy, and desire are the fuel of the world. The good inclination is the brakes; the evil inclination (envy) is the engine. Without envy, the world is a sterile cemetery.

Culture: When color returns: *Pleasantville* and the cost of fake serenity

The film Pleasantville (1998) tells a similar story. The town of Pleasantville begins as a black-and-white paradise: there are no fires (firefighters only rescue cats from trees), no rain, every basketball shot goes in, and there is no envy or passion. Everyone is polite, everyone is "happy," but everything is frozen inside.

When does color appear? When does the world become "real"? Only when the characters begin to sin. When they feel sexual desire, when they get angry, when they become envious, and when they create forbidden art. The color (wisdom, life) is the direct result of shattering this fake harmony. The film seeks to prove that a world without drive and without conflict is flat and meaningless. Only the "poison" of intense emotions turns existence into a vibrant, colorful masterpiece.