No Gift Is Free
Desiring without Coveting
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” (Genesis 2:16)
The woman replied to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden. It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: ‘You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die.’” (Genesis 3:2-3)
You shall set bounds for the people round about, saying, ‘Beware of going up the mountain or touching the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. (Exodus 19:12)
Why are the people forbidden from touching Mount Sinai? And why is Moses allowed not just to touch it, but to ascend it? The Torah suggests that the divine presence is so intense, so powerful, that coming close to it can be fatal. The spiritual realm requires regulation and caution. But in the case of Mount Sinai, the text goes further. Not just God, but the mountain itself is charged—holy by association. If God is the fire, the mountain is a smoking ember, less hot than the source, but still flammable. Still, the fact that Moses ascends means that one can protect oneself from the divine power through some sort of inner purification. (Either that, or the mountain is not actually dangerous, and the law against touching it is simply a bulwark against profanation, which is a different kind of danger.)
It is a Biblical commonplace that treating holy objects without care and intentionality is a no-no. Yet the first instance of transgressive touching in the Torah seemingly teaches the opposite point. Eve takes the Tree of Knowledge to be untouchable when, in fact, it is only the fruit of the tree that is off limits. To superimpose Exodus on Genesis, the Tree of Knowledge is not holy. Alternatively, it is holy, and Eve is correct to assume it off limits to the general public. But she is not the general public. Like Moses, she is permitted to ascend the mountain, but not permitted to see God’s face. She is allowed to touch the tree, but not to consume its fruit.
The Torah makes a parallel between the Tree of Knowledge and Mount Sinai. Transgressing the limits of either leads to death. In the case of Mount Sinai, the limit is touch. In the case of the Tree of Knowledge it is consumption, but as Eve demonstrates, it is reasonable to think the limit might have been touch. Why make this parallel? What is the relationship between Torah—which is sometimes called a Tree of Life— and the Tree of Knowledge? Here are some possibilities:
Torah is a Tikkun, or rectification, of the Fall. While we cannot live in Paradise, a life of Torah gives us a kind of ersatz Eden. Live by these laws and you will have not innocence, but some sense of wholeness and non-alienation.
Torah is a consolation for the Fall. We’re never going to be whole again, as long as we are earthly beings, but Torah gives us a way to make the best of our situation, a kind of comfort in our toil.
Torah is a requisite antidote to the Fall. So long as we lived in Paradise, we didn’t need Law, we didn’t need to care about justice or governance or the good life. We had a more immediate access to the good. But the burden of knowledge of good and bad sends us down a rabbit-hole whereby we have to keep taking new drugs, as it were, to deal with the side-effects of previous ones. The Torah is a remedy for the condition of Expulsion, but it’s a remedy that also needs a remedy (hence, Oral Torah). Once we seek a remedy (instead of structural healing), there is no end to remedy-seeking.
Torah is wonderful, but it’s also burdensome. Before receiving Torah, we aren’t responsible to keep it. After we receive it, we cannot undo our responsibility. Similarly, eating from the Tree of Knowledge is an irreversible act. It’s a great act, but it’s also a terrible act. Both Sinai and the Tree of Knowledge introduce gravity into our world. Some life choices can be economically evaluated in terms of trade-offs. But other life choices cannot, because they involve choosing the kind of people we want to be in the future. Some choices concern identity. And once we realize that choice, our would-be selves cannot protest, because they are not around to evaluate. The choice to eat from the tree of knowledge, and the choice to receive the Torah, are identity choices. Both the mountain and the tree allude to the threat of death, because a) mortality is the condition for choice and b) whenever we choose something of consequence, we are exercising our finitude. The word decide means to kill off (possibilities).
Note that in the story of Sinai, there is no serpent. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is taken, the Torah is given. In the case of Eden, the fruit is a temptation. In the case of Sinai, the people are tempted not to receive the Torah, but to worship a golden calf instead of patiently waiting for it. These differences are worthy of contemplation. I’m partial to the notion that God changes God’s mind—the knowledge which was once stolen is now a knowledge that is granted freely. Yet the fruit of Eden is consumed with barely any delay. The Torah takes time—time to transmit and register and apply, literally and metaphorically. While the forbidden fruit creates an instant ontological alteration, the Torah is more like “extended release.” It can take epochs for it to kick in. In contrast to Prometheus, who steals fire from the gods, the Torah is given to us. But there’s a twist. Will we want it as much now that it is a gift and not something we must heist? Will we desire it on its own terms, on our own terms, rather than simply because it is transgressive to do so?
The last of the 10 commandments is “Do not covet.” Could it be that the Torah is subtly suggesting we not covet Torah itself, that we not relate to wisdom as something to be desired because others desire it, but because we ourselves desire it?
It’s striking that when Adam and Eve are offered the fruit as forbidden, they can’t help themselves. But when Torah is offered to the people, they can’t help but be distracted or intransigent. Perhaps they—we—only want what they can’t have. But the purpose of Torah is to habituate us to the right kind of wanting, a positive wanting, a wanting of what we do and can have. The opposite of coveting is gratitude, the only bulwark against a life of failed experiments in pursuit of a high that can’t last.
Mount Sinai is said to be dangerous, but the Torah is said to be protective. Does this mean God is not in the Torah, or not in the Torah with the same intensity that God is on Sinai? Is Torah “safe” precisely because its divinity is less obvious and immediate? I take the Torah to be a way of balancing divine presence and divine distance, a way of making God accessible without making God mundane or casual.
To eat from the tree of knowledge is to become aware of death, but not literally to die. And to study Torah is to become aware of death, but not literally to die. The first story presents knowledge of death as a curse or punishment, but the second presents it as life-giving. This is because Torah asks us to choose who we will become, and this is not a question that can be settled by utilitarian calculus. To answer the question we cannot covet—we cannot think comparatively. We must embrace the existential fact that we are singular and incommensurate. When we do, our loss of Edenic innocence becomes the gain of of Sinaitic maturity.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins @ Etz Hasadeh
P.S. —I’m hosting an “Ask Me Anything” series with Interintellect on Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality, and Poetry. The first salon is January 27th at 8:30 PM EST. Reserve your ticket here.
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