Rabbi Barry Leff Digest
Number  61 Date 10/31/03

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The story of Adam and Eve eating of the tree of knowledge is a troubling story.  The tree is officially called “eitz hada’at tov v’ra,” the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.  So if prior to eating from this tree Adam didn’t know good from bad, how could he possibly be punished for eating from it?  We all know that in secular law there is what is called the “insanity defense,” an excuse which Jay Handel unsuccessfully tried to invoke in his recent murder trial in Campbell River.

But the insanity defense is older than that.  It is also a principle in halacha, in Jewish law.  People who were considered mentally incompetent were not held responsible for their actions, and were not permitted to enter into contracts.  It has come to be accepted logic that someone who does not know good from evil needs treatment, not punishment.

So if Adam didn’t know good from evil, couldn’t he have invoked the “insanity” defense?  Couldn’t he have said, “well, God, until I ate from that tree I didn’t know that eating from it would be doing anything wrong.  I didn’t know the difference between good and bad.  Now that I do know the difference because I ate from the tree, OK, now I’m warned!”

Rabbi Yosef Horowitz, the Alter of Novardok, gives an explanation in his Mussar book “Madreigat HaAdam,” the Levels of Man. 

Even if Adam didn’t know good from evil, he still should not have done what he did.  Adam was the first man, created directly by the hand of God.  Obviously someone at a very high spiritual level.  God’s child.  Someone God spoke to.  Even if Adam didn’t know good from evil, it doesn’t say he didn’t know truth from falsehood.  If God had told him not to do something, how could he possibly do something that was contrary to God’s will?  Children obey their parents even before they understand the difference between good and evil. 

Rabbi Horowitz suggests that when God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, it wasn’t a commandment.  Rather, it was advice.  God was telling Adam, “that tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and bad—listen to me, don’t eat from it.  Boy, if you eat from it, you’ll be sorry.  If you eat from that tree, you’ll die.”

Adam, being created b’tzelem Elokim, in God’s image, had free will.  He could choose whether to follow this advice or not.  So why did Adam choose not to follow God’s “aitzah tova,” Her good advice?

What the tree of knowledge unleashed was physical appetites.  When first created, Adam was like an angel—he didn’t have physical needs and desires at all.  He knew such things existed, but only in an abstract, intellectual sort of way.  The effect of eating from the tree of knowledge was to implant physical desires into the person.  After eating from the tree, Adam would no longer be like an angel with no physical desires: he would become a person with all of the accompanying appetites for food, drink, sex, comfort, and so on.

So why give up the life of an angel to become a true human?  Because Adam figured that if he could have all of those physical desires, and conquer them, he would be at an even higher spiritual level than he already was.  That if he could be tested in this way, and remain true to God, if he could control those desires, he would advance spiritually.  There is a teaching in the Talmud that a tzadik gamur, a completely righteous person, cannot stand in the place of a ba’al teshuva, a person who has sinned and repented.

The logic is simple.  If you grew up in a completely observant home and never tasted treif, you have no idea what you are missing.  You have no particular appetite for things you’ve never had, so it’s no big deal to keep kosher.  On the other hand, if you know just how tasty a pepperoni pizza is—or freshly fried abalone, or shrimp scampi, or a Philly cheese steak—and you still give it up to keep kosher, that shows a very serious commitment to God.  It takes someone at a higher spiritual level.

So Adam decided to challenge himself in this way.  He said, thanks God, for the good advice, but if I’m to grow spiritually, I need to do this.  Any parents of college age kids can probably relate to this: we try to give them advice on how to do things to make life easier for themselves, but they have to do it their own way anyway.

According to this view, Adam didn’t sin at all.  Rather, he simply chose not to follow God’s advice, because he thought he would be up to the challenge and he would grow as a result.  Unfortunately, Adam’s descendants, Mankind, was NOT up to the challenge—in a few generations, by the days of Noah, people were being ruled by their appetites and God found it so repugnant He decided to start over.

I would suggest that this decision of Adam’s—the decision to take a chance, to take a risk, in order to improve himself—is what makes Adam Man.  If you look at the stories our tradition tells around angels you will find that angels have no desire for improvement.  In Hollywood language, angels have no “character arc.”  They are what they are.  You don’t see Rafael or Micha’el striving to be Metatron.  The angels all have their assigned role, and they all seem content with whatever it may be.

While being given free will may be what made Adam “God-like,” having this urge for self-improvement is what made Adam “Man-like.”  We each have a desire for improvement.  Rare is the person who is completely satisfied with the status quo.  Some of us long for spiritual improvement, like Adam did—longing for a closer relationship with our Creator.  Others may simply desire a better physical lot in life—more money which translates into more “fun,” and more “goodies.”  But all of us are looking for something.  We all have some realm in which we hope to see improvement.

Adam chose to take the test.  He chose to eat from the tree in his quest for spiritual improvement.  In a way, each of us is given that test of Adam’s.  When we reach the age of puberty—roughly Bar Mitzvah age—we have an experience not unlike what Adam went through.  Physical desires are aroused in a new way.  Not just the obvious budding of sexuality, but even our tastes in food and drink change.  Whether we ask for it or not, God has us eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad.  Children are seen as “angel-like” in their purity and innocence.  We give that up to become adults.

Our tradition does not say “bad idea! No!” and deny it.  We do not have a tradition of monks who strive to go back to a state similar to Adam before he ate from the Tree.  We do not say “deny sex, deny physical comfort, be an angel.”  Not at all.  To the contrary we are told that Adam was right in a way: those physical desires—what we would call the yetzer hara, the evil inclination—can be used as a vehicle for spiritual advancement.  The difference between us and Adam is that we have a tool that Adam didn’t: we have the Torah.  The guidance of the Torah tells us to take those negative inclinations—the potentially harmful tendencies we have—and direct them toward holiness.  Don’t deny the desire for sex and intimacy by trying to imitate an angel by being celibate, but rather express that desire in the context of love and marriage, thereby elevating that physical desire into something holy.  And thereby becoming greater, holier, than we would have been without that desire in the first place.

We learn from Adam that to be human is to be on a quest, to seek improvement.  We must remember to seek the right things, as it says in Proverbs chapter 2: Indeed, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding; If you seek her like silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; Then shall you understand yirat Hashem, fear of the Lord, and find the da’at Elokim, knowledge of God.

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