ספר בראשית

In the words of our author, the brilliance of the “sparks” which had not yet been sufficiently ‎reduced in intensity for man, even an Adam, G’d’s personal handiwork, to be exposed to without ‎being harmed by it, [absorbing it internally, Ed.] was the reason why G’d warned him on pain of ‎death not to eat from it. ‎The author illustrates all this by means of a parable. A son had become estranged to his father, ‎thereby losing the path he had walked and getting lost in all kinds of dead end alleys which he ‎found difficult to get out of. When, in spite of these detours, he eventually found his way back to ‎his father’s home, the joy of his having returned pleased the father immeasurably more than the ‎satisfaction an obedient son who had never left the parental home in the first place could have ‎afforded him.‎When considering the relationship between the tree of knowledge and its roots in the celestial ‎spheres, the words of warning issued by G’d, i.e. “on the day when you will eat from it you will ‎die,” will become clearer. The tree of knowledge will remain alluring to its beholders as long as ‎what they see reflects the thinly veiled brilliance of its celestial origin. Only after man violated G’d’s ‎commandment did it cease to be such and assume more earthly proportions so that being exposed ‎to it any further will spell eventual death as man had contaminated it. [“Death” may be perceived ‎as the ultimate contraction of Divine glory on earth, G’d having veiled His spiritually illuminating ‎light with so many veils that none of them reach man, and therefore cannot “revive” his spiritual ‎resources. Ed.]‎ The good deeds performed by the righteous reverse this entire process and, ultimately, when ‎brought to its successful conclusion, will enable a different world from the one we are familiar with ‎to be revealed even on earth.‎ In the dialogue just described by the Torah, the first difficulty is the meaning of the word ‎אף‎ with ‎which the serpent commences. Normally, we understand this word to mean: “although, in spite ‎of,” or something to that effect. Why would the serpent begin the conversation by using this as an ‎introductory word? Furthermore, why did the serpent “quote” G’d as having said ‎פן תמותון‎, “lest ‎you will die,” when in fact G’d had said [concerning a single tree Ed.] ‎כי ביום אכלך ממנו תמות‎ “for ‎on the day you eat from it you will die.”(Genesis 2,17) G’d had made an absolute statement “you ‎will die,” whereas the serpent changed the statement to a warning rather than a threat, i.e. “lest ‎you may die,” describing death as a possible rather than as a definite result of eating from the tree.‎'Prior to the sin, both Adam and Chavah did not appreciate the concepts of ascent and descent of ‎‎“sparks” of the Shechinah, so that when they heard G’d mention the word “death,” they ‎had understood it as a merely temporary condition, such as unconsciousness. They had not ‎understood it as referring to the “death” of worlds, and that is why the serpent’s argument made ‎sense to them, as they felt that the Creator would be contradicting all that He had created if He ‎were to allow it to disintegrate so easily by a relatively insignificant action such as eating from the ‎fruit of the tree. ‎When our sages in Chagigah 14 relate that four people “descended” into the pardess, ‎‎(acronym for “peshat, drush, remez, sod) the four disciplines used to explore the ‎depths of the Torah, and that only Rabbi Akiva, returned unscathed, they meant to warn us not to ‎embark on such excursions as they might result in our death. Adam and Chavah entertained ‎doubts about the exact meaning of the result of disobeying G’d’s prohibition and its consequences ‎for anyone disregarding this command. These doubts made them potential victims of the serpent, ‎who phrased the ”threat” in such a manner that Chavah thought there was logic to the serpent’s ‎words, especially when by repeating: ‎לא מות תמותון‎, the serpent claimed that no manner of ‎‎“death” would result from her eating from the fruit of the tree. The serpent implied that creatures ‎who are ranking as high in G’d’s hierarchy as Chavah and her husband, did not have any reason to ‎fear “death.” The serpent implied that the unscreened “light” emanating from the ‎‎Shechinah was not beyond their ability to digest without harm, on the contrary, they would ‎gain additional wisdom, and become able to tolerate even more intense rays of Divine “light.”‎