By Brian Schachter-Brooks
In Bereishit, which contains the creation myth of the Torah, there is a strange line about the function of the first human beings who are created and placed in the Garden of Eden. The text says that God put them there l’avdah ul’shamra- “to work it and to guard it (2:15).” It is strange because the rest of the text does not paint a picture of gan eden as a place that needs to be worked. On the contrary, Adam and Havah seem to just walk around and eat the fruit which grows on the trees; there doesn’t seem to be any need for “gardening” the garden. Furthermore, the need to work the earth seems to arise as a curse for eating the forbidden fruit- “…b’zayat apeykha tokhal lekhem- by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread (3:19).” Living in the gan seems to mean harmony with nature, eating that which grows naturally. Living outside the gan means civilization; it means working the earth to grow grain and eat bread rather than fruit.
So what does it mean, then, that Adam and Havah worked and guarded the garden? In nature, there is nothing that exist only for itself. Although every life form is driven to preserve and perpetuate itself, the life process of each life form is integral to the life processes of many other life forms, tied together in a delicate web of give and take. We humans tend to impose our shortsighted morality onto nature, seeing nature as a brutal and amoral place. But this is due to our own lack of vision of the Whole. For example, we tend to cringe at the violence of a predator killing its prey, unaware that the suffering of being eaten is far more merciful then the slow starvation which would happen if the prey were to become overpopulated.
So in this sense, the situation of living in harmony with nature is the way one “works the garden.” Adam and Havah weren’t farmers; simply by living, by eating and breathing and excreting and reproducing, they were playing a role in the life of the whole planet.
This myth is probably a deep memory of prehistoric humanity- life before humans entered the stream of recorded time. When Adam and Havah are expelled from the garden, the hallmark quality is a sense of separation in three forms. First, they become separate from each other, as they realize they are naked and cloth themselves. Second, they become separate from God, as it says that they hid themselves from God out of shame. Third, they become separate from nature, as it says that the ground is cursed, and “…b’zayat apeykha tokhal lekhem- by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread (3:19).”
And what is the thing that creates this condition of separation? The eating from the eitz hada’at tov v’ra- the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. What does it mean to eat? It means that the thing you eat becomes part of you; it becomes who you are. The Tree of knowledge represents division; it represents seeing the world as split into that which “I” want and that which “I” don’t want. It represents division. So when they eat from the forbidden fruit, they are making division part of themselves; they are becoming divided.
This is not to say that prior to eating the fruit they didn’t have preference or desire. On the contrary, it says that “vateireh ha’isha ki tov ha’eitz l’ma’akhal- and the woman saw that the tree was good to eat.” Havah wanted to eat from the tree, so desire must have existed before she ate. Of course, all animals have desire and preference. The difference is that after eating, preference becomes identity. And this is the beginning of history with its heroes and villains- no longer is the universe a unified garden, but humanity is pitted against a universe that must be controlled in order to bend to human preference. But since reality is fundamentally uncontrollable, we are forced to experience the meaninglessness of our efforts. We try to immortalize ourselves in various ways, just like the pharaohs of Egypt sought immortality through embalming their bodies in pyramids, but ultimately everything dies and decays. The answer is not winning the fight with nature, but consciously returning to the state of unity prior to becoming separate.
How is this to be accomplished? It cannot be accomplished; it cannot happen by doing something, but by learning how not to do something. That is, learning how not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. How do we eat from the Tree of Knowledge? By contracting around our own preference, by insisting on something from reality, by demanding something from God.
But to surrender our preference means first we have to be willing to see how we cling to our desire. We have to be willing to let our desire be there without clinging to it, and this implies separating ourselves from it. And this is the paradox- that by separating ourselves from the Tree of Knowledge, we actually fall back into Unity. By separating ourselves from our tendency to create separation, we recover the original Oneness of Eden.
The word for this kind of separation that actually reveals unity is kadosh. Kadosh means holy or sacred, in the sense of being special, set apart, or set aside. In our tradition we have so many examples of things that are holy- holy times such as Shabbat, holy books such as the Torah, holy words of prayer and so on. All of these things are set apart from ordinary life in order to point to the Unity, to point to God. but the ultimate kadosh is not in setting aside special times or rituals, but in setting aside yourself. That is, setting aside your false identity which divides the world according to your preferences.
Then you can realize the truth of the opening words of this parashah: “kedoshim tihyu ki kadosh ani HaShem Elokeihem- you shall be holy, for I am holy, HaShem your God.” Meaning, when you become holy by setting yourself aside, you realize that you are not separate from HaShem; the same Oneness that expresses Itself in all of nature is expressing Itself in you also- there is no separation. At that point, our actions lose that suffering quality of “…b’zayat apeykha tokhal lekhem- by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread,” and instead express the quality of simplicity, of “tending the garden.” Through the wholeness of all our relationships, we naturally play our role within creation, surrendered to the Order that effortlessly includes us within it.
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