Bereishis - 5773

The various curses which were placed upon mankind as a consequence of eating from the Etz HaDa’as must be viewed not as punishments but rather as consequences. A punishment is justly applied only to the guilty party; children and grandchildren should not suffer for the sins of their forbears. Consequences, on the other hand, do impact future generations. If a parent does not provide his child an education, the child’s illiteracy is a consequence of that failure.

This distinction is significant. A punishment is merely a volitional response to an offence; the offence does not cause the punishment. A consequence, however, is causally related to the original act. Therefore, if our assumption is valid, we must attempt to trace this chain of cause-and-effect and explain the relation of the curses to the original sin.

While an examination of all the curses is beyond the scope of this small essay, let us focus on what is arguably the most severe of the curses – it certainly is the only one that was foretold before the sin – which is the imposition of death upon mankind. The text makes it clear that had man not sinned he would have been eternal; death entered the world as a consequence of eating the forbidden fruit. Why should this be?

Derech Hashem (Part 1 Chapter 3) in a lengthy discussion assumes that the scheme of Olam Hazeh and Olam Habah, a temporal, material world and an eternal, spiritual world, would have been true even had the sin never been committed. The transition from the one to the other, however, would have been incremental. Had Adam and Chava withstood temptation, their souls would have refined their bodies and, in turn, the entire universe that was ultimately created only for them. Thus, Olam Hazeh would have been transformed into Olam Haba.

The sin changed everything. By introducing elements of imperfection into their bodies – which is the natural effect of eating the forbidden – the bodies could no longer be refined to the extent that they could enter into the spiritual realm. They would have to undergo a process of degeneration and decay so that, at a later time, they could be reconstituted without the imperfections. This process of degeneration is, of course, what we call death.

There may be another aspect to the imposition of death. The Rambam (Moreh Nevuchim, Part 1 Chapter 2) cites a question that was asked by an individual who considered himself wise: We all know that before the sin in Eden, man did not have the Yetzer Harah, and thus was not subject to temptation. (Let us momentarily put aside the obvious problem: If he had no Yetzer Harah, what motivated him to commit the sin?) Why then was he given such a superior mind? What was the purpose of his masterful intellect, if there was no opportunity to exercise moral choice?

The Rambam, with uncharacteristic scorn, dismisses the question. Man was not originally given his intellect to make choices. He was given his intellect to come to know G-d! Had he not sinned, that would have been the focus of his life. After the sin, the nature of his life changed. Now the focus of his life would be the imperative of moral choice as “a knower of good and evil”. He would need every ounce of his intelligence to rise to this challenge.

In the original position, eternal life would have been possible. As G-d is infinite in every aspect of his being, an infinitely long life could be productively used in the quest to achieve understanding of the divine.

But in the new world of moral choice, it is precisely the shortness of our lives that create the greatest dilemmas, for one of the most important choices we make – perhaps the most important – is that of prioritization. We have so many options and so little time and so few resources. How do we decide what is important and deserving of our attention? What is unimportant and deserving our rejection? When man’s mission became the exercise of moral choice, it became necessary to introduce death; meaningful choice is only made possible by placing man in a setting which has real limits.