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One of the many important stories in Beresheet is the story of Adam and Eve, the serpent and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which begins with the Creator placing Adam and Eve in Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden. When the Creator places Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he tells them they may eat from all the trees in the garden, except for one, Ettz Hada’at Tov Vera, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent then approaches Eve and pushes her to break the Creator’s rule. When Eve gives the apple to Adam and he eats from it, they both fall spiritually, giving death the opening to enter our world.
Writing about Eve, the renowned Moroccan Talmudist and Kabbalist Rabbi Chaim Abr Ben Attar (also known as Or Hachaim) asks, “How did this happen?” How did Eve fall? I find this question fascinating. The Hachaim tells us that Eve had no awareness of the existence of the negative force that some call Satan, or the Adversary, also known to Kabbalists as the ego, or the desire to receive for oneself. Eve entered this beautiful world with the understanding that everything was good: Adam was good, the animals were good, and the trees were good. When the Adversary came to her in the form of the serpent, she had no idea that he was trying to deceive her. If Eve knew that the Adversary existed, of course, she would have taken the time to think about what his words meant and would have understood that they were meaningless. But she had no such knowledge.
This story in Genesis awakens in us an appreciation of a basic lesson: there is an adversary in this world, and we must be wary of him. If Eve had possessed this information, we wouldn’t all be struggling to bring more light to a world full of suffering and death. The Hachaim also pose a question we’ve all asked ourselves at one time or another: If the Creator is Omniscient, why did He allow the creation of the serpent?
The answer has to do with free will: the Creator wants us to make our own choices, to be virtuous because we choose to be, not because we must. (Spiritual Masters come to reclaim those who have chosen to be virtuous, not to change the world or the destiny that each must face in all justice.) F.R.
(Freemasons like to say:
All is just and perfect.
They are right.
“We reap what we sow.” F.R.)
Now that we humans have made the choice that led to the fall from Eden, the only way to remove the pain, suffering, and death that has entered the world is to overcome the adversary that makes us doubt, that continues to mislead us. The serpent and the adversary it represents give us the ability to grow spiritually, because without resistance, there is no growth.
The Bible tells us: The last enemy to be conquered is death.
Only in this way can we achieve Bila Hamavet Lanetzach—the elimination of pain, suffering, and death from our world. There are two types of people in this world: there are “good” people, those who make mistakes, but are generally kind and loving; and there are also those who have fallen, who have caused real damage. Who is more important: a good person or a fallen person? The Or Hachail tells us that it is the fallen—those who have hurt others—who are more important to our world. Those who are born good and remain that way will not amaze us spiritually. (Very paradoxical 🤨 hum!) F.R.
But those for whom the adversary is strong have a chance to bring about transformation. This is another reason why it is essential to come together in the spirit of unity, for in this way we can help one another—those who have fallen as well as those who have performed selfless acts of kindness.
Now we can work as one to draw forth more divine light. As the Hachail said, the light we receive depends on the difficulty of our work.
If the adversary were even one iota weaker, none of us would stand a chance of contributing to the ultimate elimination of pain and suffering from this world.
Not only is the adversary necessary, but its importance is magnified by its strength. For where is the greatest light revealed? Where is the opposition to the light greatest. Every time we gather in prayer, we reveal light. We gather on special occasions such as Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, and of course, we generate light on these happy occasions. But we can reveal more light sometimes when the adversary is strongest, when life is dark and difficult.
It is more important than ever for me to go to synagogue on a day when I really don’t feel like getting up and leaving the house. Moments like these are special opportunities to reveal the light.
In Beresheet, the Torah says: In creating our world, the Creator saw the light that it was good. The Midrash explains that this first light shone for thirty-six hours and was then concealed because the Creator feared that if the light shone constantly, people might use its power for negative purposes. As the great 18th-century mystic Rabbi Yisrael Ben Eliezer, or Baal Shem Tov, puts it: “Therefore, this light was hidden. Where was this hidden light, called Haganuz, the light that was too great to be left hidden in our world? It was hidden in the Torah.”
There are many stories where we learn that Kabbalists, including the Baal Shem Tov, had the ability to read the Torah, and in particular, their reading of the Zohar—to see everything. Through our studies, each of us can reach this high spiritual level. What does this mean?