Trust in the Garden Parshat Breisheet

(15) The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it. (16) And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; (17) but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”

(25) The two of them were naked, the man andhis wife, yet they felt no shame.

(1) Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say: You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” (2) The woman replied to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden. (3) It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: ‘You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die.’” (4) And the serpent said to the woman, “You are not going to die, (5) but God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know^-a good and bad.” (6) When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, .........and he ate. (7) Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived that they were naked; and they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves loincloths. (8) They heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of day; and the man and his wife hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (9) The LORD God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” (10) He replied, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” (11) Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat?” (12) The man said, “The woman You put at my side—she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” (13) And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done!” The woman replied, “The serpent duped me, and I ate.”

(1) “I am in the midst of the exile” (Ezekiel 1:1). The inner, essential “I” – whether of the individual or of the community – appears within [an entity] only in relation to its holiness and purity [and] in relation to the degree of its supernal power suffused by the pure light of an elevated illumination, flaming within it. “We and our forefathers sinned” (Psalms 106:6). Adam sinned. He was alienated from his essence. He turned to the consciousness of the serpent and lost himself. He did not know how to give a clear answer to the question, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), because he did not know himself, because he had lost [his] true “I,” with [his] sin of bowing to a strange god. [The nation of] Israel sinned. It “ran after foreign gods” (Deuteronomy 31:16). It abandoned its essential “I.” “Israel rejected goodness” (Hosea 8:3). The earth sinned [during the week of Creation]. It denied its essence. It constricted its power. It went after [limited] goals and purposes. It did not give forth all of its hidden power so that the taste of the tree would be equal to the taste of its fruit (Sukkah 35a). It raised its eyes to look outside of itself, to think about [its trivial] future, its “career.” The moon complained [at that time] (Hullin 60b). [As a result,] it lost its internal orbit, the joy of its portion. It was dreaming of a superficial beauty of royalty. Thus does the world continue to sink, with the loss of the “I” of every [entity] – of the individual and of the whole. Learned educators come and focus on the superficial. They too remove their consciousness from the “I.” They add straw to the fire, give vinegar to the thirsty, and fatten minds and hearts with everything that is external to them. And the “I” grows progressively forgotten. And when there is no “I,” there is no “He,” and how much more is there no “You.” The Messiah is called “the breath of our nostrils, the anointed one of God” (Lamentations 4:20). This is his might, the beauty of his greatness: [that] he is not outside of us. He is the breath of our nostrils. Let us seek Hashem our God and David our king. Let us tremble before God and His goodness. Let us seek our “I.” Let us seek ourselves – and find. Remove all foreign gods, remove every stranger and illegitimate one. Then “you will know that I am Hashem your God, Who takes you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am Hashem your God” (cf. Numbers 15:41).