Do you rejoice at someone else's good fortune?
I'll bet you often do.
But how does it feel when someone - friend or family - is catching breaks that seem to be eluding you?
When someone’s child is accepted to an Ivy League school while yours can't seem to get the attention of any Tier 1 university?
When a friend stumbles into a great business opportunity, while your best efforts work seems to go unrewarded?
Are there times when your mouth smiles in congratulations, while your eyes can't keep up with the display of joy?
It's not that you begrudge your friend his/her good fortune. You’re simply plagued by an irresolvable, gnawing question: “Where’s MY piece?”
There’s a word for that unsettled feeling, it's called “envy”. And it’s toxic. As King Solomon said: “A tender heart brings healing of the flesh but envy brings rotting of the bones”.
Scripture’s use of a strong expression like “rotting of the bones…” tells us that envy bores very deeply into the human psyche.
At the same time, envy seems built into the fabric of life. Millennia ago, King Solomon observed: “I have seen that all labor and skillful enterprise spring from man's rivalry with is neighbor; it is futility and vexation of the spirit.”
It’s there. But we can rise above it by re-framing how we see ourselves.
Envy often stems from the tendency to define our self-worth by how we compare to others. Your neighbor’s good fortune can bring your own “deficiency” into glaring relief. And that hurts.
Here’s where Torah thinking comes in:
G-d gives us each our own gifts and our own challenges.
My life is my unique journey, meeting my unique set of problems with my unique set of tools.
In that sense, nobody else matters. We are competing against ourselves. Period.
We can live easily with someone else’s good fortune, because life isn’t a zero-sum game and that wasn’t part of my destiny.
As empathetic person, we can choose to feel our friends’ joy. As conscious, evolving people we can choose to find inspiration in others’ attitudes, character, etc.
But their blessings are their blessings.
Time to focus on our own.
Mendy wrote...
Our commentaries explain that her envy was for her sister's good deeds and high-minded lifestyle.
Our sages tell us that "envy amongst scholars increases wisdom". Sometimes we look to someone else's advantage as an inspiration, as a bar to reach. And that is usually with ethical and spiritual achievement. That is what Rachel was experiencing.