Beyond I

I think the blunder (and "blinder") was the discovery-of-self-apart-from. Self apart from Hashem, self apart from community. This is why the two most fundamental commandments Hashem gives us are to love Him with all we have and are and love each other as ourselves. I think that is the appropriate antidote to the "primordial blunder" and the way we reach beyond the state of Adam and Eve in the Garden, beyond the love of self at the exclusion or disregard of the other. Reply

Reb Tzvi,
Are you saying that God created the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil knowing they would eat from it & elevate His goal for us to accomplish in our lives, which is to raise our personal me to God's Me, which is called Eden? If that's what your saying, isn't this reaching a lower level than a Jew is by definition that needs no m'mutza, nothing between her or him & God as He is in relation to Himself? How can Eden be as you call it, the place of Essential Being from where all delights flow . . Essential Being & delights flowing are infinitely separated, no? Reply

"Love your neighbor as yourself." Leviticus 19:18.

It's not to annihilate one's self. It's not a blunder to find one's self. Consciousness of the self has not been the root of every disaster. Every I and me is not a denial of the Oneness of the Creator. Creating a place for me is not a statement that I am autonomous from all else. We are to love our neighbor as we love the self.

If you want to decry the bloated self, I'm 100% with you. If you want to say that one of the main purposes of the mitzvot is to balance the self, regulate the self, make sure the self works in better alignment with the soul and with Divine expectations, I'd be rooting you on. If you want to oppose the self when it becomes arrogant or fights the we or goes off counter to G-d's instruction, I'm with you.

But this generalized demeaning of the self is over the top. We're taught to love the self. Reply

Re: Whoa; and Re: From 'I' to 'We' to '1' Having in mind that the exile from the Garden was a precursor to our exile from the Holy Land, about which the Talmud says that the Shechinah went with us into exile; and also that the Shechinah is the source of all Jewish souls; and also that "The Holy One, blessed be He, desired to have an abode in the *lower realms*" specifically (see Tanya, ch. 36 for detail on this):

The end of ch. 41 in Tanya (from "A man should never separate himself from the community") explains in depth why and how Beinonim should strive to nullify their sense of self to G-d, even though this type of service in it's truest form (le'emes le'amito) is found only among those with ahava rabbah.

The note there says that through the mitzvos, one accomplishes unification through revealing the "whiteness of Arich Anpin", the source of kindnesses, therefore automatically nullifying the severities of all the lower worlds.

You can find a complete, translated Tanya in Chabad.org's Library; look for "Lessons in Tanya". Reply

From 'I' to 'WE' to '1' In the Real World - in spirituality there is no such entity as "I".

- There we will find only 1 QUALITY- unconditional mutual Love .
- There we will find only 1 SOUL- 'WE' become a perfect interconnected SYSTEM as 1 mind and 1 heart .

Whithin this System the Creator is revealed. Reply

Woa I never delete my 'Daily Dose' emails, and I love them.
But this one..... Woa
Rabbi, you seem to be talking of the service of a Tzaddik, a righteous man.
This isn't possible these days.
There is too much pain, and suffering.
Are you aware of mental illnesses?
Things that aren't controllable?
Who are you speaking to, Beinonim? Reply

still confused Dear Rabbi,
I receive the Daily Dose and very much enjoy the wisdom contained within them, but this one confused me. The last line "and now you know the secret of why such a tree was created"--please can you elaborate on that thought as I am still not seeing why.. On one hand you seem to be saying it was a mistake for Adam and Eve to have eaten from the tree because it separated us from Oneness with our Creator and is the root of all disaster. On the other hand you end by saying our ultimate purpose is to reunify creation with Oneness through nullification of the ego and therefore this is why the tree was created in the first place. Adam and Eve's mistake would not have happened without the tree, so how can it be after the fact that it was created to rectify the mistake? Can you please explain further. Reply

I´ve been noticed about a "G-dless Bible", namely the "Good Bible" and I´m terrified... What do you think about this subject? Best wishes from Brazil! Reply

Eden The River is Representative of our Father and sustainer. Tremendous insight!
Thanks. Reply

Andrea Lee, Wynnewood, PA Perhaps it was because the Garden needs to be watered ,and G-d chose Men to do the task,and,perhaps, if Men had not eaten the Fruit,he would not have known how to accomplish the task.

Perhaps the eating of the Fruit of the Tree was an "necessary evil"to us human beings in order to learn a lesson that otherwise could not had been learnt and the job would not had been accomplished.

Or would it?

Perhaps Men had to learn how to "consciently""relate" to evil to,afterwards, shun it ,and not just let it exist as a blind spot in human lives...

If Evil was there in the Garden,it had to be known...

Perhaps... Reply

Is it a blunder? But only with the Self you can achieve the beyond I, i suppose! Reply

i dont understand this is what i dont understand. if it is this internal infinity that we are trying to achieve because of our fall from grace in the beginning. doesnt G-d see all? did he not know what our outcome would be? so being eternally punished for following our free choice is our path? how many centuries does this have to take place? how many generation? how many civilizations? are we merely like the dinosaurs who will eventually eat each other, survival of the fittest than die from meteors? is our goal to be never ending in search of truth until paralysis of the body? in meditation and prayer it is said that we are as close to G-d as we will ever be. are we to live this way through out ones lifetime on the planet and ignore what goes on around us in our everyday lives? so many questions, so little time! is this what the jewish faith is generated from, constant prayer and everything that is eaten, touched or said in relation to Him? it is his planet and he knows it, we know it. what else is ther Reply

SELF My question is - what about man's being in partnership with G-d and having the responsibility to repair this world/Tikun Olam in order to purify the world.
Doing Tikun Olam clearly clearly requires an activist personality, not simply a nullified stat of being.

Nullification is good at times but there are many other times when ego strength is called for to improve the world.

Respectfully, I find your emphasis on nullification and the desirability to be in a state of nothingness to be over-stated. Reply

thank you for your share

you are a blessing to the World, for yes... everything has it's purpose and like everyone... Eve had a lesson to learn and learnt through suffering from her action that affected not only herself but all who came after her... except... they also had a choice... to learn... from her mistake!

i wonder since then... how many People checked with their Father first if they were challenged or unsure or easily persauded to deviate from the master plan.... Reply

They ate because they did not know any better. (Adam, and Eve), (the garden, and the fruit,) (the snake, and the tree,) and Eden is a sexual metaphor. The first eating of the forbidden fruit is Eve's commiting of adultery with a tree that was not Adam's. It was Eden's tree.

God had commanded her not to do so. She did not know any better so she ate, as it was the tree of knowledge.

Eve suffered from the curse, "Knowledge of both good and evil."
Perhaps, read Ecclesiates, and the description of the pain of knowledge.

Eve was punished so that she would learn sin is the cause of death. This is that she could choose to repair the world for what she had done wrong. She died because she did not succeed in repairing the world. This is that she chose to do wrong even after she knew, as Eve died. Reply

and now you know why... And now you know why they ate of the fruit to begin with.
Actually, I still don't know why-can you fill me in?? Reply

What of us? Dear Rabbi,
It would be nice if I could talk of us. I take an Orthodox Jewish standpoint so far as I am capable of. Yet, merely to show respect for you as a Jew, I separate myself from you, as I have not been through a Orthodox conversion ceremony. This is not a hint that I consider one of us is more wicked or more righteous than the other.
I agree that the denial of the collective singular through the assertion of separateness associated with the individualism associated with "I" might be misunderstood as a denial that godliness that exists within you. However, as I would expect that you are aware, separateness within the collective singular came into being on the second day of creation. This separateness from which freewill, autonomy, is derived enables me to speak of myself as an "I," and thereby affords the chance of me not inflicting upon you an error of my speech. Thus, I am affording you freewill, which is the chance to not only be superior to me, but also to blunder. Reply

Wonder Interesting. Reply