FORBIDDEN FRUIT

My attempt to explain why Hashem 'trapped' us into eating the 'forbidden fruit'.

Please read until the end to understand what i'm trying to say.

If there was no sickness, nobody would appreciate the gift of healthy body and healthy mind. if there was no poverty, nobody would appreciate the gifts we do HAVE.

If there was no war, we wouldn't appreciate peace. lf there was no hate, we wouldn't appreciate LOVE.

Without death, we wouldn't appreciate LIFE. Without sin, there would be no HOLINESS!
The giving of the ''Tree of Knowledge of good and evil'' has CREATED the concept of holiness and repentance in the universe.

 The 'punishment' for eating- physical death and working for a living- has created the concept of life, and of physical attainment....

The banishment from the 'Garden' has created the concept of closeness to G'od....
                       ......
°° imagine a world where everyone has unlimited riches. In such world nobody would truly strive to increase one's possessions or work for a living. So the concept of being RICH only has meaning if there is POVERTY.
°° imagine a world where nobody ever gets sick. in such world nobody would appreciate the gift of having a healthy ming & body. The concept of ''well-being'' has any meaning only bcuz there is the possibility of NOT being well.

••• Now imagine a world where nobody ever dies, and nobody has any physical or spiritual needs.... Would anything have any meaning? If we had no fears, no physical or spiritual needs, would ANYTHING matter?

Perhaps we can say that by placing the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Adam's garden, G-od has in effect created the CONCEPT OF SIN & HOLINESS! How? If nothing is forbidden, there can be no sin or morality, or holiness..

By commanding us to 'not eat the forbidden fruit of Tree of Knowledge', G'od has forced us to intellectually discriminate and make moral CHOICES about using knowledge for good or for evil.
 G'od has ''drawn a line in the sand'' -creating the concepts of moral ''right and wrong''.

After all, if G'od didn't decree that covetous thoughts or adultery are a 'SIN', there would be no reason not to engage in those actions.

••• by the same token, if G'od didn't decree the physical death as a result of partaking of the forbidden fruit, life would have no meaning, it would just be a... condition of existence, just like the color green or gravity...

•••can we say that by banishing Adam from the garden, G'od created the concept of closeness to Him? perhaps that very ban had CREATED the concept of teshuva, of ''returning to Go'd''?

   ...Perhaps we can say that if the act of sinning distances us from G-od, it also creates the concept of RETURN to Him. Otherwise, being connected to Go'd would just be a fact of life, not a goal to strive for!

°° perhaps if Go'd is LIFE, we only ''die'' a °tiny bit° when we sin, relative to the severity of the transgression of the individual. And each time we do a mitzva, we return/gain life/become CLOSER to our Source....

There are infinite levels of life and of holiness. Every thought and every gesture can bring us closer to Eden!!!

(week of parshat Vayakhel-Pekudey 2018 תשע'ח