בס"ד
The picture conjured up by the sin of Eve is that of a world in its childhood and where its creatures are like innocent children. They are basically good but have weaknesses in character and things to learn, but are not actually evil.
To a certain extent it is like an anthropomorphic cartoon where human beings interact with animals that talk. It reminds me of one I watched as a child called Top Cat. The plot revolves around a group of cats who talk, walk on two legs, and wear some clothes. The joke is that they are a gang of conniving thieves. Their nemesis is a policeman named Officer Dibble. He’s a fully clothed human being who is on to their tricks and in the end puts a stop to their shenanigans. He mainly causes them embarrassment but does not harm them.
Concerning the sin itself it is as if Eve is like the older child playing teacher and the snake is like the younger child playing the student. Eve is slightly vain but not actually evil. The snake at first glance seems to be merely mischievous but upon examination can be very malevolent.
The snake is also described as potentially man’s most valuable assistant. It could be that the verse, “He who troubles his own house will inherit wind, And the foolish will be servant to the wisehearted”, (Proverbs 11:29), was written about this situation. The vignette suggests that the snake is learning Torah from man who in turn learned it from Hashem, Himself. Man has a small amount of evil in him while part of the snake is the abode of the evil inclination. One of the tasks of the snake is to test man by suggesting bad ideas that nevertheless are tempting. In this way man grows and the snake becomes a valued servant through the Torah seasoning the evil inclination.
The snake essentially appeals to Eve’s vanity by flattering her into eating the forbidden fruit, saying it will make her into a goddess. This is helped along with shallow thinking and foolish meditation. The fruit looked good but if she thought about it seriously she would quickly and clearly realize that it was not good. On the contrary, it was very bad.
The fruit itself sharpened a person to good and evil. This does not seem to be problematic forbidden knowledge. A lesser sin would be a desire to be judgmental and self-righteous. A heinous sin would be a desire to know evil by actually being evil.
One of the errors of Eve was claiming that God forbade her to touch the tree of knowledge of Good and evil when in fact His only prohibition was against eating of it. There is an aspect of making a fence to the Torah, however it is important to recognize the stringency as being distinct from the mitzvah itself. The Gemara reckons this as a chumra meaning a stringency (Hebrew חוּמְרָא). It also says that anyone who adds to the Torah will come to subtract from it (Sanhedrin 29a). In addition chumras can be a vehicle for vanity יוּהֲרָה (see Gemara Brachos 16b).
In the end we learn that chumras can lead to distortion of God’s word. Distortion of God’s word is facilitated by vanity. Vanity also encourages shallow observation and distorted thinking. A distorted mentality leads to rebelliousness. These things annul fear of heaven which causes evil, misery, and death.
לע"נ
האבא פייוול בן אהרן זצ"ל ב אדר תשפ"ג
האמא מלכה בת חיים ז"ל נלב"ע טו ניסן תשנ"ח
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