EXOD484 There are four attitudes [of relationship] among men: he who says… "Yours is mine, and mine is mine"--he is wicked. Pirkei Avot, Perek V, mishnah 13. This is the wolf-like person who at cards, in conversation, or in business, is "out for blood." Everything he does, he perceives as an important move in a fateful contest, in which he is determined to win, to gain an advantage, to see what he can take from you. This man is a rasha, genuinely wicked; he violates the spirit and the letter of the Torah. The last of the Ten Commandments reads: [this verse] On this the sagacious R. Abraham ibn Ezra comments: "Many will wonder about this commandment: How can a man not long in his heart for something attractive that seems so desirable to him?" The other nine Commandments involve action of some sort. But coveting, wanting, is a desire, an emotion. How can the Torah enjoin me to control my emotions? How can I suppress my natural desires? Ibn Ezra continues: "In answer I will give you a parable: A peasant of sound mind who sees a beautiful princess will not yearn in his heart to be intimate with her. For he knows that such a thing can never be; and we cannot rank this peasant among the insane, that he might suddenly long for wings to fly skyward. So too will a man generally not desire a close relative for a mate, though she be beautiful; for since childhood he has been reared to reckon her forbidden to him. Even so should every man of intelligence know that neither wisdom nor knowledge will bring a person a beautiful woman or wealth; they will become his only if the Blessed One has so ordained… Hence the intelligent person will not wish or court another's wife: knowing that the Blessed One has forbidden her to him, he will consider her more inaccessible than is a princess to a peasant." Is Ibn Ezra not utterly right? Sometimes a boy falls madly in love with a girl and will threaten to commit suicide unless he can marry her. But the boy knows he can marry the girl, if she will but consent. For the peasant there was never a possibility to wed someone so far above his station as a princess; no serious desire would develop. Then consider the next man's property and possessions so distant from your furthermost reach that it will never enter your mind to want them. So can you control your desires. Therefore is the predatory "wolf" so thoroughly wicked. He accepts no such concepts and no such curbs. His desires and wants are his keen, fresh guides for living. Everything and everyone about him is fair game. He has never heard the adage of the Sages mocking him: "If you have taken what is not yours, what is yours will be taken from you." (Talmud, Tractate Derech Eretz i) There is a wise saying that people can be divided into two groups: the givers and takers.… The giver will always give; he feels that the world owes him nothing. The taker will always take; if you do him a thousand favors, he will accept them as a matter of course. As he sees it, you, your time, your friends, your range of influence, exist only to serve him. Yet he will never think of doing anything for you; he owes you nothing. "Yours is mine, but mine is mine too." A taker is not a giver. If we have a choice, let us join the givers and not the takers; with an affable, cheerful attitude let us learn to say with the hassid, "Mine is yours, and yours is yours." The world will become a little better for it.