Envy, a prayer against jealousy (CCAR 1923)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Unknown and Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR]

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8 March 2026 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

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Tags:

20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Ahavat Hashem, English vernacular prayer, exhortation, עין הרע predatory gaze (ill will/evil eye), teḥinot in English, תשובה teshuvah, תוכחות tokheḥot

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	Envy thou not the man of violence and choose none of his ways. (Proverbs 8:81)
	My steps had well nigh slipped; for I was envious at the arrogant. A tranquil heart is the life of the flesh; but envy is the rottenness of the bones. (Psalms 78:2-3)
	For anger killeth the foolish man and envy slayeth the silly one. (Proverbs 14:80)
	But as for me, I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause… (Job 5:2) Who doeth great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. (Job 5:8-9)
	An envious eye, an evil mind and hatred of fellow-creatures lead man to destruction. (Pirqei Avot 2.16)
	In the life to be, there is neither envy, nor hatred, nor contention, but the righteous sit with crowns on their heads, rejoicing in the light of God’s countenance. (Berakhot 17a)
	Jealousy is a disease of the spirit. It is the symptom that something is wrong with the soul. Envy is sin together with its punishment. It is an iniquity which brings its own requital of misery. Like any other sickness, envy can be cured only by the removal of its causes. Excessive estimation of one’s self is the distortion from which envy arises. It is bred from a wrong attitude of the mind. The mind looks toward self when it ought to look toward God.
	Envy is always concerned with matters of inferior worth. One never envies in another, fine character, noble disposition, or unreserved consecration. The invariable objects of envy are wealth and fame, praise and comeliness, influence and position— in a word, material and perishable advantages.
	If the command to love God with heart and soul and might were literally obeyed, there would be no envy, for the destructive fire cannot rage without the fuel of low desires.
	The cure for envy is to desire God. When we long for Him with all our souls, we cease to long inordinately for those ephemeral advantages in which all envy centers.
	As the body needs the vast pure air, so does the soul need the eternal. Without them, body and soul sicken and deteriorate. Envy is suffocation of the soul. To prevent and cure this spiritual ill the soul must seek to breathe the untainted air of Infinity and live in the pure holiness of God’s Presence.
	Eternal One, Thou are our life, Thou art our health. Our souls grow sick when removed from Thee. When separated from Thee, we fade and wither like the leaf separated from the stem. O let our love for Thee become perfected. So unstintedly may our hearts be given unto Thee, that our minds and our hands may be given unreservedly to the duties that come from Thee. Be our souls so full of love that there will be no room for fretful jealousy, and our minds and hands so occupied with our work that there will be no time for envy. Sweeten our lives with Thy presence, and calm us with Thy holiness. Purify us with Thy grace. Let Thy beauty be upon us. For Thou art the purpose of our existence, Thou art our life’s end and aim.

“Envy” is the twenty-third prayer found in ברכה ותהלה Blessing and Praise: A Book of Meditations and Prayers for Individual and Home Devotion (CCAR 1923), pp. 80-82. Unfortunately, we do not yet know of a resource providing clear attribution of authorship for any of the prayers in this volume.

Source(s)

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Unknown

Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please leave a comment or contact us.

Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR]

The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada.

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Jalousie (Jealousy) by Eugène Grasset (1841-1917)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)

Envy, a prayer against jealousy (CCAR 1923)

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