Josh Gressel is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Francisco and a student of Jewish mysticism. He wrote this book on envy in order to unravel some of its mysteries, particularly why it has always had such a hold on him. He defines envy as "to want what someone else has when you think that you don’t have it." This emotion is usually accompanied by feelings of resentment, inferiority, and longing.
Gressel takes a hard look at envy and the nicer emotions such as emulation and competition but comes up with very little. Next, he probes the line between envy and resentment and finds it to be quite blurry. The author reaches higher ground when he discusses envy and its links to projection, the need to belong, and self-destruction. In the Old Testament, envy is a sin. Gressel humbly comes to the end of his meditation on envy and concludes that we ought to see it as a spiritual teacher:
"I am suggesting that we stay open to the pain that triggers the envy, that we not block it through sniping at the cause of our envy or covering it with a soothing balm of material purchases or other stop-gap measures."
