Godtalk

What is the meaning of the story of Adam and Eve?

My rabbi, Allen Krause, z”l, read it as a narrative about the human condition. When we are children, we live in Eden: all of our needs are met and we have no need to till the soil.

Eventually, we grow up and become parents and have to work for a living. Eventually, we become knowledgeable in the ways of the world. Eventually, we have to leave Eden to know what it means to feel pain.

It is not simply a cautionary tale, however: the process of growing up also means gaining knowledge. When we eat from the tree of good and evil – when we gain that knowledge – we become aware of our ability to affect the world around us. We learn how to take responsibility for our lives.

For us, therefore, the Adam and Eve narrative is an acknowledgement that growth involves some pain and rupture.

We have to leave behind what is comfortable and familiar to venture into a new realm, one that is profoundly unfamiliar. At times, it seems that the land itself is resistant to our efforts: The soil is rocky, the task is difficult, and the yield is poor.

But this growth is also what allows us one of the greatest joys: that of nurturing new life.

But is that the only way that the story could be understood?

Maimonides provides us with a second interpretation. In Maimonides’ view, Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden basking in the glory of God. This ‘glory’ is considered to be a form of energy, like a golden light, that overflows from God and animates all things. This energy, known as the Active Intellect, is also the source of wisdom.

When Adam ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it meant that he shifted his attention away from God’s glory to the world around him.

Adam’s turn away from God to consider the lesser subjects of good and evil was the reason why he lost his immortality. Whereas he had been contemplating pure truth, he was now thinking about mundane things – what is good and what is bad.

What is particularly interesting to note here is that good and evil are not considered to be absolutes, according to Maimonides; instead, they are relative terms that relate to social conventions regarding the regulation of the appetites of the body.

That is not to say that Maimonides believes in relativism. For him, truth and falsehood are absolutes. But ideas regarding what is good and what is evil are related to social conventions. It is a strikingly post-modern formulation for someone who wrote in the 12^th century.

Even though Adam turned away from truth, we can still perceive it. Even as mortals, humans are still sometimes able to turn back to God in isolated moments.

That capacity to turn toward God, in fact, is the true source of righteous behavior. As Maimonides observes, “all of man’s acts of disobedience are consequent upon his matter and not upon his form, whereas all his virtues are consequent upon his form.”(1)

To put that in more modern language: we are sinful when we follow our bodies’ desires but we are righteous when we follow our minds’ analysis. In the act of thinking, we have the ability to rise above ourselves.

What is another possible interpretation of this text?

For the mystics of Lurianic Kabbalism, the Adam and Eve story is an explanation of how evil entered into the world.

First, God created the holy light. That’s what’s meant by ‘God said, ‘let there be light’ – and there was light.’ After the creation of the light, then God then created vessels to hold that light. But when the light poured into the vessels, they shattered.

The story, therefore, is read as an allegory by the Kabbalists: it describes the processes within God that unfolded during creation. In their view, our role is to redeem those scattered rays of primordial light. We do so by performing the commandments with pure intentionality.

Later, the Hasidic movement added to this Kabbalistic textual inheritance, and provided additional insights as to how these texts might be applied to our own lives. It offers quite a lot of wonderful material. Over this past year, I have been reading Hasidic texts with a hevruta, a study partner, as part of my work as a fellow in the second clergy cohort of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

In this coming week, we will study a text from Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Halevi Epstein of Cracow. According to the text, our task as Jews is to repair the original orderliness of creation, the one that existed prior to the first sin. Our job is to release all of the sparks, the ones that fell into inanimate matter, plants, animals and human beings.

I found two things that are interesting here: the first is the idea that at every level we are able to help repair the world. Even when we are doing our regular work, we are able to have an impact on the larger project of perfecting the world. I find that particularly encouraging.

If you do a good job, even when doing a mundane thing, that work can affect the people around you for the better. Are you cheerful? Are you helpful? Are you kind? These things matter. Regardless of whether your role in the world is large or small, you can be a force for good.

The second thing I found interesting here: according to the text, even your mistakes can be helpful to others. In fact, mistakes are how the sparks within human beings are released. Why is that? If you should repent for what you did – even if it is a small thing – and then say that you are sorry, your example can influence others to do the same. You release the misdeeds of others by modeling this behavior.

This lesson demonstrates why pursuing integrity in all our deeds really matters: how each of us respond to others can be a source of inspiration – or a source of pain. You are the one who decides. You can always choose to be kind.

(1) Maimonides, Guide, III:8, vol. 2, p. 431.