In the beginning: some Bereshit parsha thoughts

by Doctor Science

My Jewish New Year's Intention is to try to read the weekly Torah portion or parsha. I'm getting a big push from the twitter group #ParshaChat, which discusses topics selected by the moderators every Wednesday evening (Eastern time). Coincidentally, Mr Dr Science teaches fencing classes on Wednesday evening, so I can participate without distractions.

The first parsha of the year is Bereshit, "In the beginning": Gen 1:1-6:8. This week's discussion focused on the theme of "trees", and we mostly talked about the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil.

The thing that always puzzled me most about this story is Gen 3:22, which is not often discussed:

And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." [New International Version]

This kind of contradicts the whole exiled-for-disobedience story--a story which already contradicts itself. G-d told Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as though it was a warning about poison: "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." And the Snake doesn't tell Eve anything untrue: "G-d knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like G-d, knowing good and evil" -- which is precisely what G-d says in Gen 3:22.

This bugged me a lot while I was growing up. At some point in my late teens or early 20s I was reading about Mesopotamian religion, and I encountered the story of Adapa, the first man. Adapa is very wise, but is fooled by the trickster god Ea into refusing the food of immorality--and thus condemns humanity to sickness and death.

Looking at the Genesis story from a Mesopotamian point of view (in which immortality is a long-standing goal), trickster Snake gets humans to eat from the wrong tree. Indeed, Snake is probably in cahoots with G-d (not unlike in the book of Job), doing a good-cop-bad-cop act.

If I assume the composers (writers? bards?) of the Genesis story started with a Mesopotamian tale about humans being tricked out of immortality, then what strikes me is that our Jewish composers doubled the Tree [1]. The drama now becomes, not just a tale of loss, but about a choice between Knowledge and Immortality.

And from the Jewish POV, we always pick Knowledge. Specifically, it's "Knowledge of Good and Evil" -- which could be shorthand for "everything", or could mean "Right and Wrong, Good and Bad". Moral knowledge, having a conscience. Becoming human, instead of staying with the timeless minds of animals.

Thinking of it that way, it feels to me as though rejecting the Tree of Knowledge would be rejecting Torah. And then we say, Torah is a Tree of Life (per Prov 3:18)--so by choosing the Tree of Knowledge, we end up with both Trees, head and heart together.

The ParschaChat mods pointed out that Gen 3:6

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.

makes an implicit parallel between Eve and G-d, who also looked on things and "saw that it was good."

I'd never noticed that parallel before, but by the usual rules of Torah study it MUST be significant. It certainly leaves the door open toward a reading in which Eve is the one who makes the choice to follow G-d. As Tolkien said, "We make still by the law in which we're made": in the image of G-d, we're creators as G-d is a creator, we appreciate beauty as G-d appreciates beauty, we seek to be wise as G-d is wise.

When the mods asked, How is Torah a Tree of Life? What does this mean?, two answers impressed me in particular [3].

One person argued that

There's a persistent dichotomy - you can live knowledgeably, you can have a full, interesting life - or you can have an eternal life, without knowledge or conflict. But you can't have both.

So when I hear "Torah is a Tree of Life...", I hear it as "don't seek immortality - immortality is empty. Hold fast, instead, to this rich tradition of knowledge and thought and exploration. Let THIS be your Tree of Life, and be satisfied."

And another summed up why I study Torah. She is a Tree of Life because of

Her physical substance, her acknowledgment of the grittiness of human existence (we're not the first or last to face truly ugly problems), her admonishment to welcome the stranger, her shared history with our community, and bringing us together to study/interpret her.

That says it for me.

Tree of Life, stained glass by Ardyn Halter.

---

[1] In the Quran it becomes a single tree, as it tends to in Christian images of Eden. A single Tree as Axis Mundi makes intuitive sense in a way that the two Trees do not, so I consider one Tree to be the ancestral or primitive state of the story, two Trees is a derived state [2].

[2] Tolkien's Two Trees are of course another derived state of the same basic trope.

[3] I'm not using names or links because the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism is ramping up (again), and I want to protect my fellow students from trolls.

Comments

[DMC]

Or this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah)#/media/File:Tree_of_life_bahir_Hebrew.svg

[DMC]

And what's with that mainstreaming of anti-semitism anyway? I'm looking at you, Unz Review

[wj]

Becoming human, instead of staying with the timeless minds of animals.

I'm a bit confused by how the "timeless minds of animals" constitute immortality. It seems like the argument is that not being conscious of time is the same as triumphing over time (which is how I see immortality). And I see them as two very different concepts.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Perhaps timeless in the sense of not being conscious of one's finite life ... oblivion.

Which is a kind of immortality. Human children maintain that state for a period of time.

Such unconsiousness could be seen as a sort of triumph, as much as sedation and anesthesia while having one's leg removed surgically is a modern triumph over pain.

Elephants might disprove this human/animal split regarding consciousness of Death.

They seem to spend a lot of time in existential musing.

My mother had a cat who knew, before any of the rest of her family, that her physical Death was imminent, though we of course knew, in the course of things, her life would not be infinite.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Not only mainstreaming anti-Semitism, but mainstreaming it from the top:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940706/trump-soros-kavanaugh-twitter-vote

From an ignorant lout, elected and enabled by ignorant louts, tens of millions of them, and who can rile up a crowd of ignorant louts regarding the sacred presumption of Kavanaugh's innocence, while demonizing a woman's telling of the accusation, in a job interview, that we might all be so lucky, but can reject and campaign against the innocence of the swarthy, in the most public terms, even after our public institutions have exonerated the defendants' of all guilt.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york

The train is off the tracks and spitting into the wind ain't gonna stop the ride.

Read this, from a sober, dispassionate, notoriously bipartisan observer, Kathleen Hall Jamieson:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump

There will now be no justice for the stealing of a presidential election.

Sorry, Doc.

A very thought-provoking post. I'll remove myself to other threads.

[Hartmut]

There was no command not to eat from the tree of life. Was it hidden in plain sight or did it not bear fruit at the time? Or was it like the golden apples of Idun that have to be consumed on a regular base to restore youth?
While we are at Mesopotamian myth: Gilgamesh too got tricked. The stay awake test he couldn't avoid failing was the pretense to deny him permanent absolute immortality, and the plant of rejuvenation (i.e. temporary relative immortality) he got instead as a consolation price was stolen by a snake (!) that demonstrated its effect by shedding its skin (the aition for the belief that snakes are immortal by way of repeated rejuvenation).
Whether Gilgamesh came home a wiser man is up to debate. The epic ends with verses from its very beginning. Does that mean he learned nothing or that simply the cycle is ready for the next turn (eternal recurrence of the same)?

[Girl from the North Country]

And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us

or, as the authorised version of the King James Bible (which I always prefer) has it:

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us

What I'm suddenly interested in, never having spotted it before as far as I recall, is the use of the words "one of us". I've looked it up, and the explanations seem to vary between a reference to the Trinity (absurd in my opinion, in the Old Testament), to the Royal We. But this, although perhaps it exists in Hebrew, would not explain one of us. So now I come to think of it, this is very odd, as spoken by a deity we are told is a jealous god, who insists "Thou shalt have no other god before me" and that jews should repeatedly say "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD". Hmmm. Very rum indeed.

[russell]

An excellent post Doc. I am full to the brim with food for thought.

Thank you!

[wj]

this is very odd, as spoken by a deity we are told is a jealous god, who insists "Thou shalt have no other god before me"

Observe that this is actually quite different for "there are no other gods than me, period." In fact, it would appear to be an explicit statement of polytheism. Which is not, perhaps, surprising in a document which includes chunks originating in other, polytheistic, religions of the region. But pretty clearly, monotheism was an evolution from mere supremacy in a constellation of gods.

[Girl from the North Country]

I observe it, and consequently believe that followers of the monotheistic religions have been sold a pup!

[Liberal japonicus]

Lovely post Doc. Can you explain ‘how’ you study the Torah? Is there a standard translation or do you work from the original? Is it free, like bible study or is there some ’curriculum’ that underlies the study? I also know (I think) that traditional study also includes studying commentary, similar to studying the scholia for Homer. Does that happen with you and your group? And, as a convert, is there an element of studying it like a second language for you (realizing that it is a second language for everyone, but are there points when others raised in the culture/faith have knowledge they draw on vice versa?

[Doctor Science]

lj:

There are LOTS of ways of studying Torah--there is no topic for which "Two Jews, three opinions" is more true.

I read the parsha in English and think about it. Many people in the chat have knowledge of Hebrew, but by no means all. It's very low-key and informal.

[Yama]

Wonderful bit of stained glass there.

[byomtov]

"...The LORD our God is one LORD"

I had not heard this translation before. Checking Google, I see that the King James Version uses it.

The common Jewish translation is, "The Lord is one."

My Hebrew is not good enough to comment very knowledgeably, but I do know that in Hebrew the word "Adonai," - the Lord - appears only once in this part of the prayer. It reads, "Adonai echad." "Echad means "one."

[Girl from the North Country]

You're right, byomtov, as I happen to know since we had to say the Shema prayer just minutes before my father's death, because he could not do it himself and had been a traditional-ish jew. I quoted the King James version since I think it is one of the glories of English literature, and that is always a consolation to me when (as a rather anti-religion atheist) considering the bible.

[Lurker]

Girl from the North Country,

I think that looking at the oldest translation, the Septuagint, is instructive, because it gives a good idea what Jews were thinking around 200 BC the Torah to mean. Verse 3:22 is

καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός ᾿Ιδοὺ Αδαμ γέγονεν ὡς εἷς ἐξ ἡμῶν τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν, καὶ νῦν μήποτε ἐκτείνῃ τὴν χεῖρα καὶ λάβῃ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς καὶ φάγῃ καὶ ζήσεται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

The translation of the pertinent part is, as far as my Greek helps me: "Behold, Adam has turned into like one of us, knowing good and evil..." So, KJV seems to carry the understanding of the text also mirrored by Septuagint.

[wj]

I do know that in Hebrew the word "Adonai," - the Lord - appears only once

Interesting, byomtov. Because what I have always heard in services is "Sh'ma Yisra'el, Adonai 'eloheinu, Adonai 'eḥad" (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃‬). That is, "Adonai" appears twice.

[byomtov]

wj,

You are correct.

I misread gfntc's translation and stuck an extra "Lord" in somehow.

[Lurker]

wj,

From classically Lutheran point of view, the statement is not purely polytheist. Luther defines god as something from which we expect help, hope and safety. Thus, wherever we put our trust, that is our god.

If you think that your wealth is going to shield you from evil, then money is your god. If you think that sports and healthy lifestyle alone are a fulfilment of your purpose as a human and preventing disease, then you have created an idol out of them. If you make your intellect and studies the main thing giving you self-respect and dignity, they are your god. All these are idolatry.

So, the commandment does not necessarily imply the existence of other gods as spiritual beings but as something human-made.

Thus, the first commandment is perhaps the most difficult to keep. We people tend to create our own gods, favoring them over the only God we are allowed to have. Completely giving ourselves over to God, expecting no other source of help and safety, is a constant challenge we are bound to fail constantly.

[Girl from the North Country]

byomtov and wj: I don't know how that slipped by me! Particularly having actually said the bloody prayer which is consequently seared on my brain because of the circumstances. Never mind, at least somebody was on the ball.

[Girl from the North Country]

Lurker, thank you for the greek as well. I am not surprised it agrees with the KJV, since the team assembled to make that translation were, as well as able to produce a sublime work of art, very learned men. In my opinion, if anything in either testament conveys a numinous sense, it is due to the beauty of that translation.

[wj]

GftNC, I think it may help to learn the prayer late. That way, the details are more memorable than if they are merely seared into the brain in childhood.

[Doctor Science]

It's clear to me when I bring up Gen 3:22-23 that even most people who are familiar with the chapter don't remember this particular passage, even though it casts doubt on traditional Exile from Eden/Fall of Man narratives ("Fall of Man" is a Christian concept, not a Jewish one; there is no Original Sin in Judaism).

I look at it using tools I learned from Donald Akenson's Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds. Genesis as we know it was constructed by an editor from texts that were already considered canon: he couldn't leave anything out, even when the texts contradicted each other. So he *had* to include Gen 3:22-23 whether it fit with the rest or not. In fact, it seems to me that it reflects an older level of the story, more ancient--possibly *much* more ancient--than the rest of the J narrative.

But one thing the editor *could* do was move these pesky verses to a later pointin the narrative, to make them seem less motivating and more of a final flourish.