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ארץ ישראל The Land of Israel

After Man’s sin he is told that the ground will be cursed for his sake. The earth will only flourish in response to his living up to a higher ideal.

Here, the Torah shows us the first moment that the flourishing of the earth is not dependent on natural causes such as sunshine and rain, but on the moral standing of Man, to the degree that Man lives by God’s laws.

The giving of the Torah was to teach Man the path to come back to his original level.

ארץ ישראל was to be a returning to a form of paradise, to be lived on this earth.

The path for Man to return to paradise is the way of life detailed in the Torah.

This is explicit  in פרשת בחקתי where the Torah tells us that particularly in ארץ ישראל, our behavior, either good or bad, will be reflected in the land’s flourishing or the opposite.

Beraishis 3:17, Pages 86-87

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RSRH mentions this same idea in Beraishis 2:8

Beraishis 14C – Avraham is Taught that Thriving in The Land of Israel is Dependent on Submitting to God’s Torah

 

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Beraishis 3I – ארץ ישראל A Small Model of Paradise on Earth

After Man’s sin he is told that the ground will be cursed for his sake, The earth will only flourish in response to his living up to a higher ideal.

Here, the Torah shows us the first moment that the flourishing of the earth is not dependent on natural causes such as sunshine and rain, but on the moral standing of Man, to the degree that Man lives by God’s laws.

The giving of the Torah was to teach Man the path to come back to his original level.

ארץ ישראל was to be a returning to a form of paradise, to be lived on this earth.

The path for Man to return to paradise is the way of life detailed in the Torah.

This is explicit  in פרשת בחקתי where the Torah tells us that particularly in ארץ ישראל, our behavior, either good or bad, will be reflected in the land’s flourishing or the opposite.

Beraishis 3:17, Pages 86-87

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Beraishis 3D עיקר שכינה בתחתונים

The original, natural state of the world is one in which God’s proximity is felt directly by Man, here on earth.

It is only due to Man’s sin, for Man’s education, that God withdrew Himself somewhat from Man. Whenever in history God has communicated directly to Man, to our Avos, Moshe, the Nevi’im or when the entire nation stood before Har Sinai experiencing this closeness, that was the natural state of being. Those are moments, brought about by the power of the Torah, where the world returned to its natural state of being. The thousands of years of distance from God is the unnatural state.

Originally, all of nature lay before Man who stood before God. Man was at peace with the world, with himself and with God in Paradise. This is the natural state of the world.

The intent of every page of the Torah is to reestablish peace and harmony in this world, to open up the gates of Paradise once again and to bring God’s שכינה back to this world.

Beraishis 3:8, Pages 77-78

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Beraishis 2K The Challenges of the Test in גן עדן

The commandment to not eat from the tree had a number of difficulties associated with it:

1) It was a negative commandment which often meets with impulses wanting to resist it.
2) It was a commandment in the area of forbidden foods, a particularly difficult area where the יצר הרע tempts a person to sin.
3) It was a commandment that was a חוק. Common sense see no reason for thibehavior.
4) It was a commandment based on oral tradition. God told Adam, but Adam told Eve about it. There is room for doubt when it is rooted in an oral tradition.

As explained earlier in verse 9, the challenge of this test was see if Man would choose God’s will to determine what is good and evil, or his own senses and thought process.

To this day, each of us stands before God, as did Adam, before this very same tree of knowledge. Will we listen to God’s instructions or our own? Will we be drawn after our physical sense, or cast doubt on our obligations if their source is an oral tradition?

Beraishis 2:16-17, Pages 61-62

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Beraishis 2J Working and Guarding the Garden

Man is to work the land even in Gan Eden. The difference between the Gan Eden experience and a non-Gan Eden experience is only that in Gan Eden the earth flourishes in response to Man’s work. (RSRH seems to be alluding to the opinion of the Rambam that after Mashiach comes and we will live in a Paradise, the only thing that will change from the current way the world operates is the Jewish people will no longer be oppressed by the nations of the world. According to the Rambam we will not be living a supernatural existence and will continue to work.

Along these lines RSRH considers that the work and the guarding might be referring to the state of happiness (Eden) by Man dong his job according to God’s dictates. The sages understand the work and guarding to be a reference to observing Torah and Mitvos, which is a similar idea.

Beraishis 2:15, Pages 60-61

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Beraishis 2G Garden of Eden – Paradise on Earth

גן means guarded place. A place enclosed for the needs of humans. עדן means pleasure, usually meaning fulfilling all one’s material needs.

The Garden of Eden is a real location of earth. (It’s exact location is described in verses 10-14.) It was a designated place, prepared to provide Man with all of his material needs met in response to his work.

Man was created outside The Garden of Eden and was placed into the garden. The garden is prepared for him, awaiting his arrival, ready to meet his every need. But there is no guarantee that he will remain in this garden. The condition for remaining in the garden is to live by God’s laws, making use of the garden as God sees fit.

Man’s is destined to live in the Garden of Eden – life on earth where all of his needs are met. The world around him will flourish and his efforts will succeed when he lives by God’s rules. This is the ultimate destiny for all of mankind. Man grows towards that end in the course of history.

Later in history, the Land of Israel was to be another Garden of Eden on a smaller scale, given to the Jewish people, on condition that they live by God’s laws. In response, the land and all their lives would flourish. This would serve as an example for all of mankind of what they should strive for.

Beraishis 2:8, Page 57

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