There is something eternally fascinating about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We are endlessly amazed by Adam and Eve’s foolhardy giving-in to temptation and eating of the forbidden fruit. In many ways, it’s the perfect story. Every time we circle back to it, there’s some part of us that wants to shout out to Eve—‘don’t do it!’ It’s an eternally relevant story because we know that we’re just like Adam and Eve. Somehow, just like them, we eat of that Tree too, despite our better judgment: we mess up, we stumble over ourselves, we fail—just missing the perfection we almost had. It’s also a perfect story because it allows us to get angry at God: what was God thinking? Why put that tree right there in the Garden and then forbid it? It’s the perfect set-up! It’s the proverbial placing-of-the-cookie-jar right in front of innocent hands and eyes, after all. And yet, despite the maddening frustration of this story, it is the perfect typology for our hum...
A blog by Rabbi Gil Steinlauf