Thursday, January 18, 2018

The Serpent's Lie


''Garden of Eden'' Unknown Artist


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

6 comments:

Leah said...

Brilliant

Anonymous said...

Very nice post and we all should know that the bad prophecies in the Tanach do not have to take place, but the good MUST materialize. As written above, agree that's why I always say that every Jewish neshama has a portion in Olam Habah, as do the righteous of the world.

The above story of Adam in Gan Eden with eating of the forbidden fruit teaches us that H' is the Ultimate script writer and everything that happens is already known to Him and that HE controls everything. H' is Perfect!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful! Thanks. Never heard this before.

SK

michal rus said...

Wow.
This is just such a great lesson!
Reminding us that all things have purpose and that we are responsible for our own part in even that sin- no passing the blame!

Thank you so much

Devorah said...

We can thank Rabbi Elimelech from the book Mipeninei Noam Elimelech

Devorah said...

That link didn't work, try this one Mipeninei Noam Elimelech