This Midrash on “Adam and Eve in the Garden” was inspired by my reading of David Birnbaum’s “Summa Metaphysical 1, God and Evil”
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Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden. It is day 11,466. The weather, as always, is perfectly comfortable but is not something that they notice or even truly enjoy…as they never have experienced heat or cold, ice, snow freezing rain or terribly hot and humid summer days with the threat of torrential rains and tornadoes never being too far out of mind.
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They are both naked but as erotic passion has not yet emerged, and as they need to exert no energy to obtain the necessities of life, they live in total peace, comfort and tranquility with themselves, each other, their environment and their creator.
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Anger, pain, joy, frustration, pleasure, strife and death are not yet present in their consciousness and they are therefore not distracted from each present moment of contentment.
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The problem of Evil in the world has not yet arisen either in their day to day lives or as a theoretical or theological abstract construct standing in opposition to the concept of an ever present, all powerful and totally beneficent God.
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If one was to step back and look at Adan and Eve from a distance, one might well conclude that they are living their daily lives with no sense of past or future, and with no way to fully enjoy their many benefits (as they have nothing to compare them with), and no consciousness of having been condemned to live an eternal “life sentence” in a golden cage, bound by golden chains and completely unable to know who they are in terms of latent emotions or to tap into the intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual potential that lies dormant within them.
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We note in passing (though it should be recognzed that this “note” is at the very heart of this modern day midrash) that Adam and Eve were made in the image of G-d, the creator of heaven and earth whose spirit sustains every corner and every particle in the universe… then, now and forever.
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And according to this midrash…what G-d wanted from his latest act of creation was Not another set of “angel like creatures” who like all all other angels did not have the potential to grow, create, or to more fully understand themselves. And if these almost angel like creatures (Adam and Eve in the garden) wanted to fly…they would have to do so on their own through the use of steel that is powered by oil..things which human beings on their own created, and discovered, worked with, changed, and used in new and creative ways.
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It was now day 191,429 and Adam and Eve were slowly coming to realize that the animals with whom they shared their garden were born, matured, procreated, aged and died…thereby making room for a new generation of their progeny who continued this cycle of birth and death.
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It was around this time that on lazy afternoons with a beautiful blue sky, warm sun and a cool breeze, totally satiated after a healthy and delicious lunch sitting in the shade of an Apple Tree…. that Adam and Even first began to discuss what legacy they would someday be leaving and whether future generations would praise or curse them for having chosen to stay in the garden where every need was fulfilled at no cost to them except for their decision to accept comfort and eternal life over a potential life of more intense joy, meaning and freedom, and all that comes with being mortal.
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And as these conversations continued, Eve began to have some unexpected but welcomed stirrings deep within her body and mind. she began to feel a yearning not yet named or fully recognized…but a yearning that we, the generations that followed, know as the very root of our later physical existence.
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Eve’s yearnings, correctly understood, were for physical union with Adam, in a way neither one of then had yet imagined, leading to pleasure not yet experienced and joy at the image of one day seeing a satisfied baby smile at her while receiving nourishment from her breast.
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And G-d seeing all of this unfold smiled to himself and asked the angels to construct the first huppa.
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For G-d this was evolution happening right before His eyes as first Eve then Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge with all that has followed including bringing into the world consciousness of:
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freedom/passion/autonomy/love/
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And yes, along with all of the above came the very real and very human feeling and tendency towards:
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greed/fear/envy/lust/desire to dominate, conquer, oppress and enslave/gossip/ and the inclination towards destructive and self destructive behavior/
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and all of this along with the reality of living in the real world with aging/pain/suffering/
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And in the blink of an eye, the snake spoke, the apple was eaten and Adam and Eve quickly found themselves reborn, as it were, outside of the womb of the most pleasant of gardens, and into the realities of the world as we..the generations who followed them..have come to know it.
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And G-d smiled as he acknowledged to Himself that for His children, made in His image, to fully recognize their own potential he would have to grant them both time and space to experiment, to learn, to fail, to learn resiliency, to mature and to figure out how best to cope with a natural world in constant flux and a human world beset with all the negative emotions and destructive and self destructive behaviors generated by these negative emotions that is (as Adam and Eve quickly learned after leaving the garden) part and parcel of being human beings in the process of growth and self discovery.
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And G-d knew that His children would struggle and be cruel to each other, and in addition they would suffer from natural causes..(earthquakes, hurricanes, drought, flooding, illness etc)..all of which would threaten the lives and livelihoods of all peoples; and that all of this would inevitably befall human beings as soon as Adam and Eve left the Garden for the adventure of becoming fully human.
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And G-d knew that for His children to grow up and to meet their full potential it would take time and that He would have to hide His face in order to keep himself from intervening when his children lost their way or became victims to natural or man made disasters. He also knew that He would have to endure their adolescent rebellion against Him including their sometime tendency to deny His very existence.
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But G-d also knew that in spite of the pandora’s box that was opened when Eve first bit into the apple from theTree of Knowledge, that He had time on his side.
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For G-d knew for a fact, and human being are still continuing to learn, that all of G-d’s children have the potential to find meaning in their lives..regardless of external circumstances, and to find the creative potential deep inside of them that would throughout the following millennia allow them to continuously redeem the sparks hidden in plain sight at the time of the creation of the world.
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And G-d knew that through human struggle and perseverance, love and compassion, along with an open heart, and positive action taken both individually and collectively that human beings would be able to redeem the lost and hidden divine sparks and in their own finite lives be able to get a taste of the peace and contentment enjoyed in the garden by Adam and Eve.
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And God looked at the post garden of Eden world in which Ever and Adam had chosen to live in, and in spite of the evil, the pain, suffering and death that was now part of the reality of all living things, and because of the joy, love, compassion and understanding that His children could now experience as they tapped into their latent potential for growth….G-d smiled and reiterated that from His perspective “It was all still very good.”
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Michael Papo
mapapo44@gmail.com
www.PapoBlogSumma.com
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