140- The Difference between Envy and Lust

The author of the book Resheet Hochma (in “Gate of Humbleness,” Chapter 7) brings an allegory: There is a story about one who was greedy (meaning he coveted everything he saw), and one who was jealous (who was always jealous of what others had, even though he did not need it, but why does the other one have it?).

They were walking together. The king met them along the way and said to them, “One of you will ask me for something and I will give it to him, but then I will give the other one twice as much as I have given the first. The greedy one wanted both parts, so he did not want to ask first. The other one also did not want to ask first because he would be jealous of the other if he received twice what he was given.

In the end, the greedy persuaded the jealous to ask first. What did the jealous one do? He requested that one of his own eyes would be poked out, so that the other one would receive twice as much, and both his eyes would be poked out.

This is the difference between envy and lust.