Tag: Garden of Eden

The commandment to not eat from the tree had a number of difficulties associated with it:

1) It was a negative commandment which often meets with impulses wanting to resist it.
2) It was a commandment in the area of forbidden foods, a particularly difficult area where the יצר הרע tempts a person to sin.
3) It was a commandment that was a חוק. Common sense see no reason for thibehavior.
4) It was a commandment based on oral tradition. God told Adam, but Adam told Eve about it. There is room for doubt when it is rooted in an oral tradition.

As explained earlier in verse 9, the challenge of this test was see if Man would choose God’s will to determine what is good and evil, or his own senses and thought process.

To this day, each of us stands before God, as did Adam, before this very same tree of knowledge. Will we listen to God’s instructions or our own? Will we be drawn after our physical sense, or cast doubt on our obligations if their source is an oral tradition?

Beraishis 2:16-17, Pages 61-62

Man is to work the land even in Gan Eden. The difference between the Gan Eden experience and a non-Gan Eden experience is only that in Gan Eden the earth flourishes in response to Man’s work. (RSRH seems to be alluding to the opinion of the Rambam that after Mashiach comes and we will live in a Paradise, the only thing that will change from the current way the world operates is the Jewish people will no longer be oppressed by the nations of the world. According to the Rambam we will not be living a supernatural existence and will continue to work.

Along these lines RSRH considers that the work and the guarding might be referring to the state of happiness (Eden) by Man dong his job according to God’s dictates. The sages understand the work and guarding to be a reference to observing Torah and Mitvos, which is a similar idea.

Beraishis 2:15, Pages 60-61

To Man’s senses and understanding, the עץ הדעת appeared beautiful, nourishing and the most correct tree to partake of. Despite that, God told Man not to partake of it.

This is the meaning behind the tree’s name: By man’s choice it will become clear what Man considers good and evil. Does he make his determination based on his own senses and understanding or based on the will of God?

The tree stood to remind Man of that which must remain front and center in his mind. Man’s doesn’t understand why he can’t partake of this tree. Everything inside him tells him that he should partake of it, and yet God’s will is that he not partake.

For Man to fulfill his mission on earth and be worthy for the world to be a Paradise for him, he must learn to put God’s will, whenever it is revealed, before his own.

Beraishis 2:9, Pages 58-59