AND GOD SAID, "LET THERE

BE LIGHT," AND THERE WAS LIGHT. AND GOD SAW THE LIGHT THAT IT WAS GOOD,

AND GOD SEPARATED BETWEEN THE LIGHT AND BETWEEN THE DARKNESS.

(Bereishit 1:3-4)

Rabbi Yehuda

bar Simon said: One could see the entire history of the world through the light

that was created on the first day. When the Holy One blessed be He saw the

generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersal [which was punished

for building the Tower of Babel], He hid it [the light] away for the righteous in

the [Messianic] future, as it is written: But the way of the righteous is

like the light of dawn; it shines ever brighter until the day is perfect (Proverbs 4).

(Bereishit Rabba 42:3)

The Sages said that the Holy

One blessed be He hid away this light because the world was not worthy to use it, because He feared that we are incapable of

containing such an infinite light. After all, we misuse the small bit of

limited light that is granted us, using it, for instance, to illuminate prison

fences or to spy on our neighbors. As long as we do not use that light to

illuminate that which is within us, it is better for it to remain hidden and

protected until the End of Days. The Ba'al Shem Tov would say: "Where did the Holy One blessed be He hide that light? He hid it in the Torah." One who

studies the Torah properly opens the book and can see the light of the Seven

Days of Creation shining from within it. If you would ask where that light is

hidden, I would say that some of it is hidden in Jerusalem…

Jerusalem has a special light; it is not plain white light, but rather

colorful light, light with character. It has a personality and it creates

things.

(From

Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael Steinsaltz's article "Ha'Or

Ke'Veriya Rishona"

in Urim, published by Am Oved

and Keren Adi)

The Pure Sin of the Tree of Knowledge

Moshe Meir

And

themselves girdles.

As

is its custom, and in contrast to other narrative forms, the Torah gives us a

partial description that leaves the reader room for interpretation. Exactly

what kind of tree was the Tree of Knowledge? Since the Torah does

not tell us, permission is granted for derashot

to be produced:

What

was that tree from which Adam and Eve ate? R. Meir

says: it was wheat. When a person has no knowledge, they say [in a folk

saying]: "That man has never eaten wheat bread in his life." R. Shemuel bar Yitzhak presented a contradiction to R. Zeira: Could it have been wheat? He said to him: Yes. He

said to him: But it written tree!! He told him: They [the stalks

of wheat] were as tall as the cedars of Lebanon… R. Yehuda

bar Ila'i said: It was grapes, for it is said, their

clusters. Those were the clusters that brought bitterness to the world. Rabbi

Abba from Akko said: It was a citron. That

is why Scripture says, and the woman saw that the tree was good – Say:

Go and learn; which tree has wood that is eaten as are its fruits? You find

none other than the citron. R. Yossi said: It was figs.

We learn this from its context. It is like a parable of the prince who

disgraced himself with one of the maidservants. When the king heard, he caused

him grief and ejected him from the palace. He [the prince] would beg at the

doors of the maidservants and none would receive him. However, the one with

whom he had disgraced himself opened her door and received him. Similarly, when

Adam at from that tree, the Holy One blessed be He caused him grief and

ejected him from the Garden of Eden. He wandered among all the trees and

none received him. What did they say to him? "Here is the thief, who stole

his Creator's knowledge [i.e., deceived his Creator]." However, the fig

is why it says: They sewed fig leaves. (Bereishit

Rabba 15)

Every attempt at identifying the Tree of Knowledge clings to

some allusion, either from popular sayings or from the language of Scripture. The

last identification views the fact that Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves an indication that they had also sinned with the fig tree. The interesting question is: why did eating from the

Tree of Knowledge constitute a sin? It is possible to claim that the very fact

that God prohibited them from eating its fruit made it a sin. However, the tree's

connection with knowledge does not allow us to be content with this answer. Why

did God consider a turn towards knowledge to be sinful and punish it with

expulsion from the Garden of Eden? RaMBaM gives this

question a powerful formulation:

"It

would at first sight," said the objector, "appear from Scripture that

man was originally intended to be perfectly equal to the rest of the animal

creation, which is not endowed with intellect, reason, or power of

distinguishing between good and evil: but that Adam's disobedience to the

command of God procured him that great perfection which is the peculiarity of

man… It thus appears strange that the punishment for rebelliousness should be

the means of elevating man to a pinnacle of perfection to which he had not

attained previously. (Guide for the Perplexed 1:2, Friedländer translation)

The RaMBaM explains that Adam had

lacked moral understanding, the Tree of

Knowledge of Good and Evil. He already had the ability to discern truth from error from

the start, and if he had not sinned that would have remained his pure and

single faculty of reason. However, the plain meaning of the text implies that

had it not been for the sin Adam would have lacked reason altogether.

Of their very essence, reason and knowledge involve breaking

through limits and transgressing against rules. Reason is the mother of

skepticism and the critical sense which challenge everything – including the

utterances of the Highest Authority. It is impossible to employ reason without

sinning, without breaking the rules of the game and questioning accepted ideas.

The creation of a reasoning human entails the creation

of a being who will surely sin; otherwise, he would not realize his essence.

Adam's expulsion from Eden is a corollary of his being a

rational creature. A rational creature cannot remain in the Paradise of

innocence. The story was placed at the beginning of the Torah to teach us that

God wants there to be a creature that is different from the animals in that he

questions, doubts, and rebels. Humans who imitate God follow suit. The parent

or teacher who truly loves his child or student will want them to think

independently. When the child or student disagrees with him – he will rejoice

in his heart.

Man is Required

to Respect Life

However, meat

was not permitted to them until the time of the "sons of Noah," as is

the opinion of our Rabbis. And this is the plain meaning of the verse. The

reason for this [prohibition of eating meat] was that creatures possessing a

moving soul have a certain superiority as regards

their soul, resembling in a way those who possess the rational soul: they have

the power of choice affecting their welfare and their food, and they flee from

pain and death. And Scripture says: Who knows the spirit of man whether it

earth? (Kohelet 3:21) But when they

sinned and all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth (Bereishit 6:12), and it was decreed that they die in the

flood, and for the sake of Noah He saved some of them to preserve the species,

He gave the sons of Noah permission to slaughter and eat them since their

existence was for his sake. Yet with all this, He did not give them permission

regarding the soul thereof, and He prohibited them from eating a limb cut off

from a living animal, and in addition He gave us [the children of Israel] the

commandment prohibiting the eating of all blood because it is the basis of the

soul… Thus He has permitted the eating of the body of dumb animals after

death, but not the soul itself.

(RaMBaN on Bereishit

1:29, Chavel translation)

This is the record of Adam's descendants

Rabbi Nahmani says: How is it known

that one human is equal in value to all creation? Since it says, this is the

record of Adam's descendants [toldot], and there

it says, this is the story [toldot] of heaven and

earth when they were created (2:4). Before there

was creation and doing, here too there is creation and doing.

(Avot De'Rabbi Natan 31:3)

And love your

neighbor as yourself (Vayikra 19:18) Rabbi Akiva says: That is the great principle of the Torah.

Ben Azzai says: This is the

likeness of God] is a greater principle.

(J Nedarim 9:4,

and in the Sifra)

But Ben Azai is of the opinion that

our sentence, This is the record of Adam's

descendents (Bereishit 5:1) is a still

greater, more comprehensive principle. Here a much greater, much higher union

of all men is given. This verse looks on the greatest criminal, the greatest

degeneration, the greatest bestiality, all as Adam's descendents, as all

developing out of the one Adam the one creation in the likeness of God… So

ALL men are human beings, the divine likeness is never completely lost, that is

the first Truth which stands at the head of the history of Man.

(R.

S. R. Hirsch on Bereishit 5:1, Levy translation)

Everyone is Created in God's Image

Man is beloved, having been created in the Divine Image (Avot 3:14)… this refers to every man, says Rabbi Akiva.

This is the proof he brought that that it speaks of the sons of Noah, and not

only the Israelites. Rabbi Akiva wanted to include

all men, including the Noahides. The RaMBaM made a full statement about this in chapter eight (halakhot 10-11) of Hilkhot

Melakhim: "Moses our Teacher was commanded

by God to compel all human beings to accept the commandments enjoined upon the

descendents of Noah. Anyone who does not accept them is put to death. He who

accepts them is invariably styled a resident alien… A gentile who accepts the

seven commandments and observes them scrupulously is a ‘righteous gentile,' and

will have a portion in the world to come."…and so, I am puzzled why this

became so distant to the commentators, who did not want to understand that

Rabbi Akiva meant to speak regarding all humanity,

and who think he was referring to Israel alone. They supported their ideas with

the statement [of the Sages] of blessed memory, "you [Israel] are called adam, etc." – but this is building one derasha on top of another! Thus they forced their

interpretation of the divine image, and of the verse they had brought as a

proof text. I think that this is the broad and paved road which Rabbi Akiva wanted to smooth out for everyone in the world, as

the RaMBaM says we were commanded by Moses of blessed

memory to include everyone in the world. And if we were commanded to force them

by the sword and destruction, we are certainly required to draw their hearts to

the will of their Creator and to the desire of their Rock through words… And

they are beloved, having been created in the Divine Image, their hearts readied

for study. For this is the law of man – to follow the laws and statutes of God

in recognition of His having commanded them, as the RaMBaM

says, since they were beloved of their Creator, in His image.

(Tosafot Yom Tov on Avot 3:14)

… There we tried to make it clear that both grammatical and

logical analogy speak against the assumption that the word adam is derived from adama

whereas clearly adama is derived from the word

adam. The characteristic of being "earth-born"

is one which is common to all animals, and the special characteristic of Man

would be just that he is not entirely originated from the earth, but

that the breath of God, breathed into his earth-made body made him into

a Man. The manner in which a preliminary announcement is made here already

tells us that in adam the creation of a being

of a higher nature and a higher calling is about to be made. In sentences like And you are My flocks, the flocks of My pasture,

you are adam the word adam

cannot possible have referred to origin from a block of earth. In the article

referred to above we traced the etymology of the word adam

to come from the meaning adom – "red",

as the least broken ray of the spectrum, of the pure ray of light, i.e., the

nearest revelation of the divine on earth; from the phonetic relation to hadom, "foot-stool," as the footstool of

the feet of the Divine presence on earth and bearer of the glory of God on

earth… [adam is similar to] hatam – "seal" (which relation is also

indicated by the root atam – "to close"),

as God's seal on the creation which brings home to the world its unseen Lord

and Master; and finally it is related to dama

with the individualizing alef prefixed; a

being whose whole mission consists in his being "a likeness of God,"

but who is to effect this likeness through his free-willed, independent energy,

thereby the representative, the deputy, the alter-ego of the Supreme Being – all

these ideas at rock bottom come to the same thing, just as the derivations o

the word adam: adom,

hadom, hatam,

a-dam have substantially the same conception, they could all be summed

up in the idea of representative, and designate adam

as "representative", "deputy."

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Bereishit

1:26)

…it first recounts that He, may He be blessed, created Adam

in His form and image so that he might choose to resemble his Creator as far as

possible for in that he will be perfected and his actions will be perfected and

more honored than any other actions, as is worthy of Him, may His name be blessed,

Who is exalted over all others. And He in his merciful compassion granted man

enough to satisfy his needs without trouble, and placed him in the Garden of

Eden until his deeds became wicked and ruined his livelihood when Blessed God

expelled him from there to work the land, and to undertake several tasks until

he could eat his bread.

(From the introduction to R. Ovadia Seforno's commentary on

the Torah)

Readers Respond

Pinchas Leiser did well to warn us (in the Ki

Tetze issue of Shabbat Shalom) of the dangers

of initiating wars, especially when that happens merely in order to "increase…

how important it is that the decision to wage such wars should be approved by "an

independent judicial authority."

One

of the ironies of contemporary Zionism is that a leader can enter into peace

negotiations – and not wage war – in order to increase his greatness and fame.

Of

course, we will accept a just and stable peace with open arms regardless of its

motivations, but negotiations that are mainly motivated by personal political

interests are likely to produce genuine damage. Unfortunately, it is not clear

which independent judicial authority has the ability to oversee such cases.

David Reznik

– Jerusalem

Pinchas Leiser, author of the article and editor of Shabbat

Shalom, comments:

I

thank Dr. David Reznik for his response and his

important comment. Indeed, every political decision requires good judgment and

it is certainly proper that peace negotiations be undertaken not out of

ambitions for political survival or media "spin" but rather from an

honest desire to consider an option for ending bloodshed and bringing peace to

our land. Alongside this, I emphasized in my article the danger of waging an

optional war as this is made clear by considering the moral consequences of

such wars for individuals and societies via a reading of the words of the Sages

and of the commentators on the first passages of Ki Tetze.

According

to this reading, parashat Ki

Tetze describes what can happen when a decision is

made to wage an optional war. I pointed out the existence of an urge to conquer

found in every individual and in every society, and the need to rein it in.

This

urge finds its satisfaction in war and violence – and not in negotiations aimed

at achieving peace.

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