Parashat Bereishit: What Went Wrong With Creation?

לנפש חיה A LIVING SOUL — Also cattle and beasts are called נפש חיה (1:20, 22, 24), but the נפש of man is the most highly developed of all of them, because to him was granted understanding and speech.

...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)

ויקרא האדם AND THE MAN CALLED — Scripture now reverts to its previous topic (Genesis 2:20) beginning with “and the man gave names”. It broke it off (that is, interpolated the story of the serpent) only to tell you that through the giving of names Eve became his mate, as it is written (Genesis 2:20) “but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him,” and that therefore “the [Lord God] caused to fall a deep sleep upon him” and formed Eve. But because Scripture writes at the end of the story of creation of Eve (Genesis 5:25), “and they were both naked”, it therefore follows on with the passage dealing with the serpent, to inform you that because he saw her nakedness and that they displayed no feeling of shame in their actions, he desired her, and he came upon them with his evil plan and with deceit.

And he banished him. Every time word "sent away" (שלוח) is used in the Torah and the word that follows begin with the letter mem (מ), the act of being sent away is a form of banishment due to shame as in the verse "Dismiss them from my presence and let them go forth!" (Jeremiah 15:1). This kind of being sent away is not like a great Spanish sage once said is the language of respect and honor as in [the story of Abraham and three messengers], "Abraham walking with them to see them off" (Genesis 18:17).

ותלד את קין. She gave birth to Cain. According to our sages Cain represented the spirit of impurity and evil whereas Abel represented good. Abel's soul is supposed to have been reincarnated in the body of Moses (compare Zohar 1,54 on this passage). Abel suffered multiple injuries at the hands of Cain because Cain did not know where to inflict a lethal injury. The pains suffered by Abel in the process removed any vestige of evil that may have been in him so that when Moses was born he was totally good. This is what Eve hinted at when she said: קניתי איש את השם. She meant that the perfection of a man such as Moses who could commune freely with G'd, was due only to the sufferings undergone by his ancestor Abel.