פרשת בראשית תש"ו - איסור אכילת הפרי

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’

...The commentators said that the fruit of this tree gave birth to the sexual desire, and this is why they covered their nakedness after they ate from it. They brought as proof a similar usage of language in the statement of Barzilai haGiladi “I am now eighty years old. Can I tell the difference between good and bad?” (Shmuel II 19:36) which indicates that he had lost the sexual desire. This is not correct in my eyes, because later in this story it says “…and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad.” (Bereshit 3:5) And if you want to say that the snake lied to her, it says further on And the LORD God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad…” (Bereshit 3:22) It has already been said (Pirke d’rabbenu hakadosh, Gate 3, 16) that there were three who spoke the truth and were destroyed from the world, and they are – the snake, the spies and Doeg the Edomite (the Beroti). It seems right in my eyes that the human did what came naturally, just as the heavens and all their host, which do only truth, whose acts are only truth and do not deviate from their appointed task. There is no love in their actions or hate. The fruit of this tree gives birth to the will and desire that those who eat it should choose a thing or its opposite, for the good or the bad. This is why it is called ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,’ because da’at in our language refers to will or intention, as the Sages said ‘we only taught this in a case when his intention is to return…if it is not his intention to clear it out…’ (Pesachim 6a). This is true in biblical Hebrew as well - “what is man that you should know him?,” (Psalms 144:3) meaning that you should care about or desire him, or “I have known him by name…” (Shemot 33:12) meaning that I chose him from all other people. So too the statement of Barzilai haGiladi ‘between good and evil,’ meaning that he had lost his power of discernment and could no longer desire something or be disgusted by it, eating without tasting and hearing without taking pleasure in son. Here in the garden there was no desire for sexual intimacy between the man and his wife, rather at the proper time they joined together and gave birth. Therefore their sexual organs were exposed just as their faces and hands and they were not ashamed of them. After they ate from the tree, the choice was in their hands and they had the will to do evil or go to themselves or others. This is a divine quality from one perspective, just as it was bad for humanity as they now had lust and desire. It is possible that the verse intended this when it said “…God made men straight, but they have engaged in too much reasoning.” (Kohelet 7:29) ‘Straight’ means that one should seize on a single straight path and ‘engaged in too much reasoning’ means that one seeks various acts among which they can choose. When Gd commanded the man not to eat from the tree he did not inform him of this quality of da’at which it imparted, rather Gd simply said ‘from the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden,’ meaning the known one in the middle – don’t eat from it. This is what the woman said to the snake, and only in a later verse does it mention the tree by name “but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it.” (Bereshit 2:17)

ויצמח ה' אלוקים מן האדמה, “The Lord G-d made grow from the earth, etc.” According to the plain meaning of the text these words prove that there is such a thing as Paradise on earth and that it contains a tree of knowledge as well as a tree of life. The fruit of the tree of life causes those who eat it to enjoy long life, whereas the fruit of the tree of knowledge instills in those who consume it willpower and freedom of choice. to do either good or evil both in matters physical as well as in matters spiritual. Our sages in Pessachim 6 said concerning this “לא שנו אלא שדעתו לחזור, the ruling applies only to someone who had resolved to return to his home during the festival of Passover.” [The author uses the word דעתו in the Talmud where it refers to someone making a voluntary decision as proof that here in our verse too the term עץ הדעת, does not mean “the tree of knowledge,” but means ‘the tree permitting man a choice.” Ed.]
We find support for this meaning of the word דעת in Psalms 144,3 מה אדם ותדעהו, “what is man that You should have granted him grace?” In other words: “why have You extended Your goodwill, Your love to man?” The meaning of the term עץ הדעת then is the tree which causes G-d to relate to man with either favour or disfavour.” Originally, G-d had withheld this kind of choice from Adam as he had been ‘programmed” in his deeds prior to his sin. This does not mean that he was not free to sin but that his actions were guided exclusively by his intellect thus practically excluding sin as he had not been subject to temptation from within.
Once man had sinned, i.e. had eaten from the fruit of that tree, he became possessed of an independent will, i.e. obedience to G-d’s will was no longer automatic, dictated by his intellect. The new-found “independent will” meant that he had acquired an attribute reserved for G-d, an attribute that he could handle only at great potential cost to himself.