Anatomy of a Sin
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Bereishit (Genesis 1:1-6:8 )
The question we're going to seek to answer today is one of life's fundamental questions: Why do we sin? What causes us to live below our potential?
To answer this essential question, we must go back to the first sin of mankind. A little context: after God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden, He gave them the very first mitzvah, commandment, in the Torah. Contrary to popular belief (and most Christian approaches to the Bible), the first mitzvah in the Torah is to eat from ALL the trees of the garden. God wants us to have a big, beautiful, rich life. He wants us to enjoy all the magnificence of His creation. However, a big, beautiful, rich life also has restrictions, just like every sport has boundaries and fouls. Therefore, God also commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
But the temptation to eat of the Tree proved to be too difficult to resist. Eve and then Adam failed this first test - they sinned by eating from the fruit, casting humanity out of the garden and into the harsh reality of the world. Why? What was so tempting that caused them to directly transgress God's word? By taking the time to understand this first sin, we'll hold the key to understanding the root of all sin.
But before we answer these questions, there's another important question we must address: What exactly was the fruit? The classic wrong answer (don't worry, I thought so too) is an apple. The Greek translation of the word evil is "mali", which is very similar to the word "malus"; the Greek word for apple. So what's the correct answer?
The Talmud (Berachos 40A) gives three opinions of which fruit grew on the Tree of Knowledge:
- Grapevine
- Fig
- Wheat
Now, if you go to the supermarket and buy grapes/wine, figs, and wheat, you most likely will not have a paradigm-shifting, God-defying experience when eating them. Given this, we see clearly that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was actually none of these three. Rather, it was its own entity; a one-of-a-kind fruit only found in the Garden of Eden. Two of the greatest Torah commentators, the Vilna Gaon and the Maharal, explain that the three types of fruit proposed by the sages in the Talmud actually correspond to the three fundamental drives within a person - physical, emotional, and intellectual. We are moved by our body, heart, and mind. Not surprisingly, these three drives correspond to the three major schools of psychology in our generation:
- Body - Freud: We're all just seeking physical gratification
- Heart - Carl Rogers: We all want to feel accepted and worthy
- Mind - Victor Frankl: We all want meaning
The debate of Freud, Rogers, and Frankl is actually a replication of the 2000-year-old argument of our sages on the driving force behind the first sin of man.
Here’s a challenge: line up the three fruits with the three aspects of human motivation. How would you connect grapevine, fig, and wheat with body, heart, and mind?
Ok, let's see how you did! The answer according to Vilna Gaon and Maharal is as follows:
- Fig = Body - A fig is the most sensual and succulent fruit, representing the highest level of physical gratification
- Grapevine = Heart - Wine shuts down the mind and brings out emotions
- Wheat = Mind - Wheat takes the most work/intelligence to process into food. Also, bread is not sensually appealing. Rather, it is maximally effective at giving nutrition - a purely intellectual relationship with food (back in the day, bread was far more tasteless and nutritionally dense).
The way we understand arguments in the Talmud is that each opinion represents one facet of the truth and combined, we get the full picture. Therefore, the tree was really all three types of fruit, in that it appealed to all aspects of Eve's desires - body, heart, and mind. Fascinatingly, we can actually see each of these three drives contributing to Eve's succumbing to the forbidden fruit in the next verse: "When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating (physical) and a delight to the eyes (emotional), and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom (intellectual), she took of its fruit and ate." (Bereishis 3:6).
And there's more. The order of the verse goes from physical, to emotional, to intellectual. What's the significance?
In Hebrew, the word for mind is "moakh," (מוֹחַ) heart is "lev" (לֵב), and body (really, loins) is "clayos" (כליות) - (literally, kidneys - the lower aspect of ourselves). Let's look at the three Hebrew words and pay close attention to the first letter of each:
- מוֹחַ - Moakh (Brain)
- לֵב - Lev (Heart)
- כליות - Klayos (Kidneys)
The first letter of the word "Moakh" is Mem (מ), "Lev" begins with the letter Lamed (ל), and Clayos with Khaf (כ). Putting the three together, they spell melekh (מלך) - King. When a person's mind rules over their heart and body, they are a ruler over themselves - a king. But, like in the case of Eve, when the body rules over the heart and the mind - when the kidneys rule over the heart and the mind, then the letters are flipped and you get the word clum (כלום) - nothing - or kalem (כלם) - embarrassment. Your efforts yield empty results because everything is temporary gratification, and you are an embarrassment as you failed to use the free will God gave you, and instead gave in to your lesser instincts.
If we look at the order of Eve's enticement to eat the fruit, we see why she sinned: she went from body, to heart, to mind. She let her lesser instincts drive her decision - she led with her physical desire instead of ruling over herself with her intellect.
We now understand the anatomy of sin: first, we are tempted through our body, emotions, and intellect. Then, we let our intellect take a backseat to our lower desires, losing control of ourselves in the face of temptation. The purpose of the Torah is to right this wrong - to put us back in the driver's seat of our lives. Through its many laws and the incredible intellectual rigor required to master it, the Torah demands that we become rulers over ourselves, never to be swayed by our lesser desires again. (See footnote for a deeper explanation of this idea)
The practical exercise for this week, inspired by one of my favorite books, Atomic Habits, is to examine an area of your life where you find yourself giving into lesser desires and acting compulsively. Reflect on what happens when you feel this compulsion - what does your decision process look like? Is there a decision you can make right now to improve your chances of success the next time you face one of these compulsions? Is there something you can change in your environment right to make the trigger for your bad habit more invisible? Is there a reward you can give yourself for self control? Can you replace the bad habit with something healthy that gives you a similar result (i.e. smoking makes you feel relaxed so instead, practice looking at nature and taking deep breaths)? Use your intellect to put boundaries around your temptations and take back control of your life!
Inspiration for this essay comes from my Rosh Yeshiva and primary mentor, Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld.
- Aside from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the other tree that sat in the center of the Garden was the Tree of Life. Adam and Eve grasped the wrong tree. "Knowledge" is a poor translation of the Hebrew word "Daas", which means for two to meld into one, which we see in the Torah the first time Adam and Eve were intimate - "Adam knew Eve." Therefore, we can more correctly translate "Knowledge of Good and Evil" as "Melding of Good and Evil." By melding good and evil, Adam and Eve cast the world into a moral darkness where one can convince himself or herself that doing a terrible sin is a mitzvah. We need to fix the mistake of Adam and Eve and take hold of the right tree. Every Jew who has been to Synagogue knows the famous verse we recite each time we return the Torah to the Ark - "Eitz Chaim hee lamachazikim bo" - "It is a Tree of Life to those who grasp it". If we grasp the Tree of Life - our Torah - we'll become the Melekh over ourselves, capable of resisting the Tree of illusory temptation that seeks to entice our lower desires and pull us into sin.
- אִילָן שֶׁאָכַל מִמֶּנּוּ אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר: גֶּפֶן הָיָה, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ דָּבָר שֶׁמֵּבִיא יְלָלָה עַל הָאָדָם אֶלָּא יַיִן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיֵּשְׁתְּ מִן הַיַּיִן וַיִּשְׁכָּר״. רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה אוֹמֵר: תְּאֵנָה הָיְתָה, שֶׁבַּדָּבָר שֶׁנִּתְקַלְקְלוּ בּוֹ נִתַּקְּנוּ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיִּתְפְּרוּ עֲלֵה תְאֵנָה״. רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: חִטָּה הָיְתָה, שֶׁאֵין הַתִּינוֹק יוֹדֵעַ לִקְרוֹת ״אַבָּא״ וְ״אִמָּא״ עַד שֶׁיִּטְעוֹם טַעַם דָּגָן. The tree from which Adam, the first man, ate, Rabbi Meir says: It was a vine, as nothing brings wailing and trouble upon man even today other than wine, as it is stated with regard to Noah: “And he drank from the wine and became drunk” (Genesis 9:21). Rabbi Neḥemya says: It was a fig tree, as with the object with which they were corrupted and sinned they were rehabilitated, as it is stated: “And they sewed together fig leaves and made for themselves loincloths” (Genesis 3:7). They must have taken the leaves from the tree closest at hand, the Tree of Knowledge. Rabbi Yehuda says: It was wheat, as, even today, the child does not know how to call his father and mother until he tastes the taste of grain.
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