Breishis-2015

· On the 6^th day, at the culmination of Creation, Hashem created man – Adam and Chava.

· Sanhendrin 38a – Why was Adam created last of all beings?  It can be compared do a king of flesh and blood who built palaces and furnished them, prepared a banquet, and then brought in the guests – namely Adam and Chava.

· Breishis 1:26 – Hashem said Let us make man in our image, as our likeness – Kidmusainu

· Rashi says Kidmusainu - As our likeness - LeHavine uLehaskeel. – to understand, and be intellectually creative.

· Lehavine – has the same root as Beena -  to distinguish – comes from root Bain – to distinguish between this and that.

· Then Hashem gives one commandment, a prohibition.

· 2:17 – You must not eat from eitz hadas tov urah , tree of Knowledge of good and evil

· 3:5 says – The tree was appealing as a means of obtaining wisdom – Hehaskeel.

· 3:5 - Snake says – on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will become as gods, knowing what is good and what is evil.

· And when they do eat from it, it says 3:7 – the eyes of both of them were opened

· Hashem says, 3:22 – Behold, the man has become like one of us to know what is good and what is evil. 

· Sanhendrin 38b – the day consisted of 12 hours

1. Adam’s dust was gathered

2. It was kneaded into a shapeless mass

3. His limbs were shaped

4. A soul was infused into him

5. He arose and stood on his feet

6. He gave the animals their names

7. Eve became his mate

8. They ascended into bed as two  and descended as four, with 2 children – Cayin and Hevel

9. Adam was commanded not to eat of the tree

10. They sinned

11. They were tried

12. They were expelled from Gan Eden

· So the BIG question is: what was so bad about knowing the difference between good and bad?

· Isn’t that something that we all should know? 

· In the Shemoneh Esreh, look at the first Brochah in the section of Requests:

· Chaneni mai itcha Daya, Binah, veHaskel

· Artscroll translates these as Wisdom, Insight, and Discernment.

· The first brocha we say in the morning is to thank Hashem for the rooster that can tell the difference between night and day

· Seeing distinctions is not only good, and important, it’s essential for living a meaningful life

· Every page of Shas is helping us to learn the distinctions between various things:  

o Kedushah and Chol

o Taharah and Tumah

o Good and bad

o Reshus ha rabim and Reshus hayachid

o Night and day

o Beis Hillel and Bais Shamai

o Rav and Shmuel

o Rava and Abaya

· These are good things to know, good qualities to have, to know how to make distinctions

· Especially between good and bad

· Knowing the difference between good and bad is called judgment, it’s the basic tool we use for bechirah, free will

· Knowing the difference between good and bad is what we NEED to make the right decisions.

· Why did Hashem prohibit eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

· Granted, they should have listened to the one commandment that Hashem commanded

· But the question is: would it have been bad knowing the difference between good and bad?

· Is it better to remain ignorant and oblivious to the difference between Tov and Ra?

· Why did Hashem make it off limits for Adam and Chava?

· Was it merely a Chok, or did Hashem have a rationale for prohibiting eating from this tree?

· A possible hint at answer is at the end of the parsha

· It says that the generation of the Mabel was Ra Minurav – Evil from their youth – because of their immaturity

· Adam and Chava were just born, they had no experience

· They were immature

· Many things are good to know, but all at their appropriate time

· A person goes through stages of development, with plateaus

· At each stage we develop better tools to think and make moral judgments

· If we are inundated with too much too soon, we don’t have the tools and mental and emotional strength to integrate what we are seeing and learning

· We need time to integrate knowledge and the tools for learning

· Otherwise, we can be overwhelmed

· If we see too much too soon, perhaps we won’t be able to handle it, it might be overwhelming - like a bad trip

· The more developed and mature we are, the more we can withstand in terms of daat and  taiva

· It’s similar to telling children the facts of life, issues that that adults must know about

· This is knowledge that they are not emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually ready to integrate

· That’s why we shouldn’t learn Kaballah until the age of 40 and have 2 children.

· A Mekubal will only teach Yesodot to people who he feels are ready for it.

· One of the problems of the Internet is that a young and tender mind can be exposed to things that they are not ready for

· Jean Piaget said there are 4 stages of cognitive and moral development

o Birth to 2 – knows through movements and sensations

o 2 to 7 – thinks symbolically, learns to use words and pictures to represent objects – very egocentric, only see things from their own point of view

o 7 to 11 – thinks logically, about concrete events

o 11 and up – young adult begins to think abstractly about moral, ethical, social and political issues

· Each stage is accompanied a greater ability to think and make moral judgments

· Chagiga 14b – Four men entered the Pardes –

o Ben Azzai took a look and died

o Ben Zoma looked and went crazy

o Elisha Ben Avuya went off the Derech

o Only Rabbi Akiva came out intact – perhaps because he was a Baal Tshuva and had built up anti-bodies to withstand what he experienced

· Nadav & Avihu – weren’t ready for what they experienced, it was premature, they rushed headlong, perhaps they were overwhelmed and died

· As we mentioned, one of the problems of the internet is that a person can be exposed to things they aren’t ready for

· It’s interesting that the company that brought the internet to smart phones is Apple, whose symbol is an apple with a bite out of it

· Baba Metzia – children first learn Chumash, then Mishnayos, then Gemorah – at different ages

· We need the Torah to guide us we accumulate more knowledge

· Raishit Chachma is Yirat Yashem

· Need Yira to balance daas, it gives maturity

· The 3 most influential people of the 20^th century were all non-religious Jews

· Einstein, Marx, and Freud –

· They did not have the Torah to guide their knowledge

· What did they do with their knowledge?

o Einstein gave us the atom bomb,

o Marx gave us socialist revolution that contributed to 100 million deaths

o Freud contributed to the idea that the worst thing is suppression of desire

· We need the Torah to guide us as we get more knowledge

· When a metal mold is made to produce plastic – if it is made it out of aluminum, it can produce 100 pieces, but then it breaks down

· The harder the steel, the more pieces it can produce, and still stand up to the intense production

· A motor lasts much longer if it is made from hardened steel, to more exacting tolerances

· Louis Pasteur said that antibodies have a little bit of bad, and we can grow stronger from it

· Then can be more prepared to battle a greater level of bad

· One aspect of the greatness of Shabbos: – it helps us pause from the daily grind, giving us time to reflect and integrate what we’ve learned during the week.

· When we are ready to learn things, we have to make sure we have the ability to integrate what we are learning.

· So perhaps Adam and Chava weren’t ready for what they were about to experience

· Perhaps Hashem knew they were not ready for the knowledge that started to inundate them.

· As a result they saw too much too soon, things they weren’t ready for, that they couldn’t integrate

· The lesson for us: we should grow and experience things with all deliberate speed

· But don’t try to experience and learn things too fast, before our minds are mature enough to integrate them.