2. Orthodox Judaism: The Garden of Eden

B. THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Chapter III in is one of the most beautiful in the Bible. It has been called the ‘pearl of Genesis’, and men read with wonder its profound psychology of temptation and conscience. With unsurpassable art, it shows the beginning, the progress and the culmination of temptation and the consequences of sin, It depicts the early tragedy in the life of each human soul—the loss of man’s happy, natural relation with God through deliberate disobedience of the voice of conscience, the voice of God. ‘Every man who knows his own heart, knows that the story is true; it is the story of his own fall. Adam [see * below] is man, and his story is ours’ (McFadyen).

The Pentateuch and Haftorahs

Is the narrative literal or figurative, and is the Serpent an animal, a demon or merely the symbolic representation of Sin? Various have been the answers to these questions; and none of them are of cardinal importance to the Faith of the Jew. There is nothing in Judaism against the belief that the Bible attempts to convey deep truths of life and conduct by means of allegory. The Rabbis often taught by parable; and such method of instruction is, as is well known, the immemorial way among Oriental peoples. Eminent Jewish thinkers, like Maimonides and Nachmanides, have accordingly understood this chapter as a parable; and Saadyah regarded the Serpent as the personification of the sinful tendencies in man, the Yetzer hara, the Evil Imagination.

Two fundamental religious truths are reflected in this Chapter. One of them is the seriousness of sin. There is an everlasting distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil. There have always been voices—Serpent voices—deriding all moral do’s and dont’s, proclaiming instinct and inclination to be the truest guides to human happiness, and bluntly denying that any evil consequences follow defiance of God’s commands. This Chapter for all time warns mankind against these insidious and fateful voices. In the words of Isaiah it seems to say, ‘Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes.’

The other vital teaching of this chapter is, Free will has been given to man, and it is in his power to work either with or against God. It is not the knowledge of evil, but the succumbing to it, which is deadly; man may see the forbidden fruit, he need not eat of it. Man himself can make or mar his destiny. In all ages and in all conditions, man has shown the power to resist the suggestions of sin and proved himself superior to the power of evil. And if a man stumble and fall on the pathway of life, Judaism bids him rise again and seek the face of his Heavenly Father in humility, contrition and repentance. ‘If a man sin, what is his punishment?’ ask the Rabbis. The answer of the Prophet is, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die’—the wages of sin is death. The answer of the Sage is, ‘Evil pursueth the evil-doer—the wages of sin is sin. The answer of the Almighty is, ‘Let a man repent, and his sin will be forgiven him’—the wages of sin is repentance.

Jewish View of the ‘Fall Of Man’

Strange and sombre doctrines have been built on this chapter of the Garden of Eden, such as the Christian doctrine of Original Sin (e.g. ‘In Adam’s fall, we sinned all’—New England Primer. ‘The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon God’—Art X, Free Will, of the Thirty-nine Articles). This Christian dogma of Original Sin is throughout the Middle Ages accompanied by an unbelievable vilification of Woman, as the authoress of death and all our earthly woe. Judaism rejects these doctrines. Man was mortal from the first, and death did not enter the world through the transgression of Eve. Stray Rabbinic utterances to the contrary are merely homiletic, and possess no binding authority in Judaism. There is no loss of the God-likeness of man, nor of man’s ability to do right in the eves of God; and no such loss has been transmitted to his latest descendants. Although a few of the Rabbis occasionally lament Eve’s share in the poisoning of the human race by the Serpent, even they declare that the antidote to such poison has been found at Sinai; rightly holding that the Law of God is the bulwark against the devastations of animalism and godlessness. The Psalmist oftens speak [sic] of sin and guilt: but never is there a reference to this chapter or to what Christian Theology calls ‘The Fall’. One searches in vain the Prayer Book, of even the Days of Penitence, for the slightest echo of the doctrine of the Fall of man. ‘My God, the soul which Thou hast given me is pure,’ is the Jew’s daily morning prayer. ‘Even as the soul is pure when entering upon its earthly career, so can man return it pure to his Maker’ (Midrash).

Instead of the Fall of man (in the sense of humanity as a whole), Judaism preaches the Rise of man: and instead of Original Sin, it stresses Original Virtue [see * below], the beneficent hereditary influence of righteous ancestors upon their descendants. ‘There is no generation without its Abraham, Moses or Samuel,’ says the Midrash; i.e. each age is capable of realizing the highest potentialities of the moral and spiritual life. Judaism clings to the idea of Progress. The Golden Age of Humanity is not in the past, but in the future (Isaiah II and XI); and all the children of men are destined to help in the establishment of that Kingdom of God on earth. (195–196—emphases in original)

* Represents a place where a Hebrew word was inserted, but which cannot reliably be reproduced here as most of us don’t have a Hebrew font on our computers and wouldn’t know what the words meant if we did.