(3) ועץ הדעת, a tree whose fruit results in those who eat from it gaining greater understanding of the relationship of good and evil... In our verse we are told that the words ידע, דעת do not primarily refer to factual knowledge but to conceptual knowledge... (4) טוב ורע, to choose that which appeared as appealing to the senses even though it would prove harmful, and to despise anything which did not appeal to his senses although he knew it to be useful to him.
אין ענינם אלא שיהיו חייבים מיתה וימותו בחטאם זה ועל דעת אנשי הטבע היה האדם מעותד למיתה מתחלת היצירה מפני היותו מורכב אבל גזר עתה שאם יחטא ימות בחטאו כדרך חייבי מיתה בידי שמים בעבירות...
...this means that they will be liable for death according to their sins. According to human knowledge, human beings were destined to die from the beginning of creation since they were put together (i.e. something assembled will one day dis-assemble), but it was legislated now that if one sins, he/she will die as a result of the sin...
Try and pretend you've never read or heard this story before - put yourself in God's place, what's your reaction? Put yourself in Eve's place, what's your response to the serpent? Put yourself in Adam's place, what's your thought on Eve offering you the fruit?
Harold Kushner "How good do we have to be?" (Little, Brown and Company, 1996)
P. 19, 'If the forbidden tree as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, does that imply Adam and his mate had no knowledge of good and evil before they ate of it? If so, how could they have been expected to know that it was wrong to disobey God? And why were they punished if they had no sense of good and evil before they ate of it?
p.21, 'I would like to suggest that the story of the Garden of Eden is a tale, not of Paradise Lost but of Paradise Outgrown, not of Original Sin but of the Birth of Conscience.'
p.23,'We can feel loss, dread, frustration, jealousy, betrayal, at levels animals will never know. It is part of the price we pay for our humanity, for our being able to feel love, joy, hope, achievement, faithfulness, and creativity.'
p. 25, 'Adam and Eve outgrow the world of animal existence and enter the complicated world of human moral expectations, they become uncomfortable at being judged and scrutinized. They realize that the choices they have to make are so immensely complicated that they can't possibly always get them right.
p. 27, 'Those [the 'penalties' God imposes on Adam and Eve] are the sources of creativity, the things that make us human. They may be painful, but it is the sort of pain that leads to growth...'
p. 30, 'The story of the Garden of Eden...is the story of the first human beings graduating, evolving from the relatively uncomplicated world of animal life to the immensely complicated world of being human and knowing that there is more to life than eating and mating, that there are such things as Good and Evil. They enter a world where they will inevitably make many mistakes, not because they are weak or bad but because the choices they confront will be such difficult ones. But the satisfactions will be equally great."