Pernicious Temptation

Rabbi Melanie Aron

October 9, 2004

Most of the time we think of the first few chapters of Genesis as children’s stories. We remember studying them in Sunday school, drawing pictures and making diorama’s. But the stories from the beginning of Geneisis and the way we understand and interpret them have proven to be very significant in shaping our outlook towards the world. Being raised in the United States our reading of these texts is often colored by Christian theology. We think of Adam’s fall from grace and blame Eve for rupturing the perfection of the Garden.

Judaism has looked at this story differently, not just in recent years, but all through the centuries.

Judaism has viewed the fruit of the tree as what modern lawyers call a pernicious temptation, that is something unfenced, unguarded, a provocative invitation. Jewish commentators have noted that the whole story has an air of inevitability to it. Have you ever thought to yourself- every parent knows that if you tell a child, “you can touch anything in this room, just leave grandma’s china alone”, that the second you leave the room, that china will exert a magnetic force of major proportion. Why would an omniscient and omnipotent God be dumber than the average parent? Judaism has stressed that along with the losses in leaving the garden, there were gains- self-reflection , development, maturity, thinking, challenging, fecundity, new birth- all of these did not exist in the garden.

Would we really have wanted it to turn out differently? Rabbi Harold Kushner paints the picture for us in his book: How Good Do We Have To Be.

“So the woman saw that the tree was good to eat and a delight to the eye and the serpent said to her, “Eat of it, for when you eat of it, you will be as wise as God.” But the woman said, ”No, God has commanded us not to eat of it, and I will not disobey God.”

And God called to the man and the woman and said to them, ”Because you have hearkened to My word and not disobeyed My command, I shall reward you greatly.” To the man He said, ”You will have to work again. Spend your days in idle contentment, with food growing around you.” To the woman, He said,”You will bear children without pain and you will raise them without pain. They will need nothing from you. Children will not cry when their parent dies and parents will not cry when their children die.” To both of them He said, “For the rest of your lives you will have full bellies and contented smiles. You will never cry and you will never laugh. You will never long for something you don’t have and you will never receive something you always wanted.” And the man and the woman grew old together in the garden, eating daily from the Tree of Life, and having many children. And the grass grew high around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil until it disappeared form view, for there was no one to tend it.”

That isn’t the world as God intended it, at least not in the eyes of the Jewish commentators.

Why the negative ending of the Biblical story then, if God expected Adam and Eve to eat of the tree? The rabbis say, let me put this in modern terms, it was like Watergate. It wasn’t the initial crime so much as it was the cover-up. It wasn’t so much eating the fruit, which incidentally Jewish tradition identifies as a fig and not an apple. It was passing the buck, blaming someone else, rather than taking responsibility. Those in the Bible who take responsibility for their own sins-like King David, get away with a lot worse.

The story of the Garden of Eden is a story about human transformation and growth. It is about learning to take responsibility. It is each of our stories as we move from the protections of infancy towards the greater freedoms of adolescence. If we are fortunate, we begin our lives in the garden, with everything provided for us. Eventually we act independently of our parents and even defy their rules. Becoming independent we must also learn to accept responsibility.

Natalie and Ariel, we are glad to be with you today and you move along this path towards maturity and wisdom.