The Serpent's Lie

The Rebbe Reb Zisha once asked his brother "My beloved brother, in the holy writings it is written that all the souls were once included and contained in Adam, the first man. If so, we must also have been there at the moment he sinned and ate from the tree of knowledge. Why didn't we prevent him from doing so?"

The Rebbe Reb Elimelech answered him thus: "Brother, we were obliged to let him eat the fruit. If he had not, the serpent's lie would still stand and would never have been proven false. The serpent said to him "Your eyes will open and you will be as G-d, knowing good and evil and able to create worlds." This is why Adam had to eat the fruit - once he did so, he saw that even though he had eaten of the fruit, he was still just a human being and no more."

Source: Mipeninei Noam Elimelech - translated by Tal Moshe Zwecker
Art: Vladimir Kush