Thursday, October 11, 2018

Did you know that in Bereshit Chava touched the forbidden tree?

In last week parasha Berashit we read how Chava was convinced by the snake to eat from the forbidden tree and we know what happened next.

There is an interesting midrash that re-tells the story differently:
Snake asks Chava about the tree.
Chaka tells him that if they eat or touch it they will surely die.
Upon hearing this the snake pushes Chava into the tree and she touches the tree and does not die. This convinces her that nothing would happen if she eats it.

The questions is why did Chava tell a lie about touching the tree? The midrash tells us that Adam made a sayag (a fence) around a mitzvah that he received. Adam was told not to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree and when he was telling Chava he made the very first mitzvah d'rabanan (maybe d'Adaman ??). Now because Chava did not distinguish between the d'orayta and d'rabanan she was convinced she would die if she touched the tree.

The moral of the story is that we should know what is d'orayta and what is d'rabanan. It is important for our everyday life as halachic Jews. And if Chava knew we would still be in Gan Eden.



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