Jewish Life Digital Edition September 2015 | Page 97
heaven. So what was Adam doing in Gan
Eden, in a state of perfection? The answer
is that he obviously had free will before
the sin, but it was a completely different
test than we have today. His mission was
to use his free will to choose more and
more perfection, and to become more and
more complete as he came closer to the
Source of Endless Perfection. The closest
example we have of this would be a boy in
Yeshiva. The food he eats is kosher, all day
he learns. If he walks past a shop selling
non-kosher food, he is not tempted by
that. We don’t see that as a test for him,
because his test is something different; to
learn deeper and better. Although, as a result of the first sin, our free will is tested
tive, but the quest for perfection and completion is what turns a person from ‘light’
to ‘heavy’. In truth, this applies even to our
sins. The word for sin in Lashon HaKodesh
is chet, and we see numerous times in Tanach2 that the word chet really means a lack.
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Even the Aramaic translation of sin is ‘distancing’. It appears that sin is not only
that you have done something which isn’t
good, or isn’t right, but rather by doing
that act you have created a lack in yourself
and a distancing from your perfection.
The reason for this is that the whole
purpose of this world and the creation of
humans
is that we OUR
should
be in a position
OUR COMMUNITY,
WORLD
of perfection: the Garden of Eden, for
ever. That was what the first man was
born into, before he sinned. But how is
simply being in perfection fulfilling a purpose? How is that hard? To illustrate, the
Vilna Gaon used to have visits from angels who wanted to teach him Torah, but
he OUR
would
send them
away because he
COMMUNITY,
OUR WORLD
wanted to reach his perfection through
his own hard work, not as a gift from
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in a different way, the directive is the
same: choose perfection, strive for it, and
avoid anything which detracts from it.
This is the purpose of man in this world.
Chazal tell us in a Midrash3 that the angels erred and requested to say Kedusha in
front of Adam, a praise reserved only for
Hashem. The Midrash continues, telling us
that Hashem then put Adam into a deep
sleep, to make known to the angels that he
was really just human. This shows us that
the angels themselves thought that Adam
was a completely spiritual (kodesh) entity.
Hence his name, Adam, from adamah –
earth, so it should be known that he was
not purely spiritual. This is the reality we
are all born into. We are all ‘from the
IF ONE HAS A LACK IN THEIR INNER CORE, AN
ABSENCE OF DEEPER MEANING, HE WILL
NATURALLY TRY TO FILL THAT LACK BY CHASING
SUPERFICIAL HAPPINESS.
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