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Share(א) היה כאחד ממנו. הֲרֵי הוּא יָחִיד בַּתַּחְתּוֹנִים כְּמוֹ שֶׁאֲנִי יָחִיד בָּעֶלְיוֹנִים, וּמַה הִיא יְחִידוּתוֹ? לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע, מַה שֶּׁאֵין כֵּן בִּבְהֵמָה וְחַיָּה
(ב) ועתה פן ישלח ידו. וּמִשֶּׁיִּחְיֶה לְעוֹלָם הֲרֵי הוּא קָרוֹב לְהַטְעוֹת הַבְּרִיּוֹת אַחֲרָיו, וְלוֹמַר אַף הוּא אֱלוֹהַּ. וְיֵשׁ מִדְרְשֵׁי אַגָּדָה, אֲבָל אֵין מְיֻשָּׁבִין עַל פְּשׁוּטוֹ:
(א) כאחד ממנו לדעת טוב ורע הוא יודע טוב ורע עם היותו בצלמנו
ואם יהיה נצחי בזה הענין הנה ירדוף כל הימים אחר הערב וישליך אחרי גיוו כל השגה שכלית וכל מעשה טוב
ולא ישיג האושר הרוחני המכוון מאת האל ית' בצלמו ודמותו:
(1) כאחד ממנו לדעת טוב ורע, he will know good and evil even while continuing to wear “our image.” This would be an intolerable situation, as in spite of his tendency to give in to his evil urge he would live on forever.
[the author considers בצלמנו as a reference to the infinite life prevailing among the celestial beings. Ed.]
In such circumstances, this Adam whose evil urge was active would continue to chase the material blessings of this world, something which would prevent him from reaching the spiritual aims set for him on earth when G’d made him in the divine image.
(1) הן אדם היה כאחד ממנו, “now that man has become like one of us; etc.” according to the plain meaning of the text the word ממנו, “of Us,” is a reference to the angels. However, if that were the only true explanation the Torah should have written “like one of you.”
However, due to G-d’s humility, He wrote “like one of Us.” The real intention of the verse is to say that originally, היה, “he had been,” like one of Us due to his superior intellect and due to this intellect not being hindered by the evil urge. Now, that he had sinned and become possessed of the desires of the flesh, however, he was no longer like “one of Us.”
(2) ועתה פן ישלח ידו, “and now lest he put forth his hand, etc.” G-d meant that now that He had decreed for man to be mortal there was concern that he would try and neutralize this by eating from the tree of life and assure himself of living forever.
4) According to the views of Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon in Bereshit Rabbah 21,5 the words כאחד ממנו, “like one of Us” mean “like the Unique One in the world.” The word אחד in Deut 6,4 שמע ישראל ה' אלוקינו ה' אחד, means “the One, the Unique One.” The other Rabbis quoted in that Midrash believed that the word אחד in our verse refers to the archangel Gavriel seeing we have a verse in Ezekiel 9,2 where that angel is referred to as אחד.
1) ויאמר השם אלוקים, The Lord G'd said: "Here man has become like one of Us, etc." We need to understand why G'd had not commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of life before He forbade them to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Had they eaten from it first they would have lived forever!
(2) Another peculiarity in our verse is the word היה. G'd was afraid that Adam might live forever, not that he had already achieved that status. The word therefore should have been עוד לא היה, or something to that effect. Furthermore, why would the ability to distinguish between good and evil elevate man to the status of G'd? How can we justify the expression ממנו, "like one of Us?" This would give the impression that there are physical beings in the heavens!
(3) In view of the fact that G'd had warned man not to eat from the tree of knowledge He was not worried about his eating from the tree of life. He did not think man would be motivated to do so either of his own volition or as a result of seduction by the serpent. The seducer only urges man to taste what is forbidden; Satan never urges you to do what is perfectly permissible.
Man on his own had no desire to eat from that tree in order to secure permanent life, something that was his birthright anyways. It was only after he had forfeited his birthright that he would seek to find an alternative for what he had lost.
If G'd had forbidden the tree of life immediately, the serpent might have succeeded to entice even Adam himself into eating from it.
Therefore G'd was wise in not including the tree of life in the prohibition immediately. After having eaten from the tree of knowledge with its fateful consequences, Adam's priorities had changed, and G'd now had to be concerned lest man eat from that tree in order to neutralize the mortality that had been decreed on him.
(4) The meaning of the word היה then is: "up until now man was alone unto himself," i.e. he was immortal," however, now that he has lost his immortality, he might want to eat from the tree of life. The word אחד ממנו, would refer to the uniqueness of man on earth. He alone of all the creatures on earth was immortal.
The knowledge man acquired due to having eaten from the tree of knowledge might prompt him to want to eat from the tree of life to recapture the uniqueness of his former stature of ruling over the creatures of earth.
(5) There is another way to solve the problems we have raised. On the day G'd commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge He gave two commandments. G'd actually allowed for the possibility that Adam would violate His command by saying: "should you eat from it, your only way to rehabilitate yourself will be through death, through mortality of the body."
In halachah we would consider the second commandment, i.e. the need to die as a לאו הניתק לעשה, a negative commandment tied to a positive commandment. The positive commandment is viewed as the תיקון, reparation of the negative commandment that has been violated. We have mentioned earlier that had it not been for the sin, Adam would have become so refined that he would have been considered as at home in the world of the permanent beings, just as the prophet Elijah who departed this world, body intact.
It was only due to the sin that Adam's body forfeited the chance to rise with him to such lofty heights. Once deprived of the opportunity to refine his body in the manner described, the very act of separation of the soul from the body becomes the symbol of the inability to achieve the elevation of the body to eternal life.
Under such circumstances man would not eat from the tree of life of his own accord. He would be afraid that as a result of eating from it he would forever forfeit potential rehabilitation should he violate the command not to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Only death could afford him that chance, and once he had eaten from the tree of life he would not die. The matter was different, however, once he had eaten from the tree of knowledge without having eaten as yet from the tree of life.
If he had eaten deliberately from the tree of knowledge, man would certainly be careful not to eat from the tree of life as that would condemn him eternally to a physical existence only. However, as we explained, man's sin had been inadvertent, meaning that he thought he was not bound to die in order to rehabilitate himself.
If so, there was no powerful incentive for him to stay clear of the tree of life. Actually, Adam erred; even though his sin was inadvertent it could only be completely atoned for through death of his body at some stage. The principal reason that G'd had commanded man not to eat from the tree of knowledge was to prevent knowledge of evil becoming an integral part of his perceptions.
His perceptions were meant to concentrate only on what is good. This is what Solomon meant (Kohelet 7,29) when he said that ישר עשה האלוקים את האדם, that "G'd made man perfectly upright." Evil did not figure as part of man's imagination and fantasies. All of this changed after he ate from the tree of knowledge. The fact that man felt naked and ashamed is proof that his fantasies now included things that were evil.
Once man had undergone such a drastic change and the purpose of the prohibition to eat from the tree of knowledge had been irreversibly thwarted, he would no longer consider not eating from the tree of life as his insurance should he need to recapture his original status.
He had already lost that status irretrievably. With the incentive not to eat from the tree of life gone, G'd had to forbid man to eat from that tree. In view of the fact that man had ignored a previous command, G'd deemed it safer to place the tree of life out of Adam's reach by expelling him from the garden.
(8) Although G'd had said that Adam would die "on the day" he would eat from the tree of knowledge, the word "day" could have one of two connotations. It could mean a period of 24 hours, i.e. a day in human terms, or it could refer to a day in G'd's terms, i.e. 1000 years.
If it is the latter, the meaning of the warning was that Adam would die before he reached the age of 1000 years. The respective connotation of the word depends on the severity of the sin and the feeling the sinner had at the time he committed the sin. If the sinner intended to anger G'd at the time he sinned, the meaning of the word "day" would be the minimum. The sinner would have to die before that period of 24 hours expired. If, however, the sin was not committed intentionally and the sinner had made it plain that he had not intended to sin, he would be given the maximum period possible, i.e. he would live up to but not including 1000 years.
(א) ויאמר ה' הן האדם היה כאחד ממנו. ר"ל שאם לא היה האדם אוכל מעץ הדעת היה האדם נשאר מחולק משני חלקים. חלק אחד הוא נשמתו הרוחניית. וחלק השני הוא גופו החמרי, שכבר בארנו שקודם חטא אדה"ר לא המזגו בהרכבה מזגית רק שוכנים זה אצל זה בהרכבה שכנית,
והיתה נפשו יכולה להתפשט מגופו בכל פעם, כמדרגת משה ואליהו ע"ה, ועתה אחרי החטא נמזגו בהרכבה מזגית והיה האדם אחד עד שכלל האדם היה כאחד משני חלקיו,
ויש הבדל בין אחד ממנו בסגו"ל ובין אחד ממנו בפת"ח, שאחד בסגו"ל מורה על חלק החשוב, ובפת"ח מורה כל אחד שיהיה ומציין החלק הגרוע, ר"ל שכלל האדם בשני חלקיו נעשה כאחד משני החלקים וכחלק הפחות שבו, שנעשה אדם גופני וחומרי,
וא"א לו עוד להפשיט את חלק הרוחני שהוא נשמתו מגויתו, וזה נעשה מצד שהוא מוכן לדעת טוב ורע ולהמשך אחר החומר ומשאלותיו,
והנפש כלואה במכלא החומר והיתה כמוהו, וא"כ אין לנשמתו תקוה לשוב אל רוחניותה ואל שלמותה עד שימות, ועתה פן ישלח ידו וכו' וחי לעולם, כי היה מסגולתו שהאוכל ממנו לא ימות, וזה רעה גדולה להנפש וגם להגוף, וכמ"ש באורך למעלה (סי' ב' פסוק וא"ו) כי הנפש לא תוכל לשוב אל מדרגתה, והגוף יהיה תמיד שבע כעס ומכאובות, ולכן
...And God said lest man become like one of us.
That is to say, that if man had not eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, he would have remained divided into 2 portions. One portion was his soul and his spirituality. The second portion was his physical body, that we already explained that before the sin, Adam was not mixed, rather he rested on his body like a rider to an animal.
And his soul was able to detach from his body at any time, like the level of Moshe and Eliyahu, but now after the sin, he became all mixed together and man was one unit made up of these two parts put together.
There is a difference between the word Echad (One) with a Segol and a Patach. With a Segol teaches on the important part, and a Patach goes on everything, including the lower part, that is to say, that man was made of these two parts, and now with this lower part, he became more base and physical.
And it was now impossible for him to separate the Neshama from his lower part, that now he was prepared to know Good and Evil, and to draw after the physicality and be ruled by it.
And the Nefesh became sunk in the physicality, and it became like it, and if so, his Neshama did not have hope to return to its spiritual stature and its perfection until he dies, and now lest he reach forth his hand and live forever, because one who ate from the Tree of Life would not die, and this was bad for the Nefesh and body, the Nefesh also needs to be able to return to its greatness, but the body always remains filled with anger and pain.
God had left it for him to decide of his own free will, whether he would defer to the Will of God in determining what was good, what bad, and thereby tread the path of life, or decide himself what was good or evil and thereby have to be fated to death. Now he had decided that he would know himself what was good and evil. But with this decision he had also decided his ultimate fate.
Created outside Paradise, his being placed in paradise was only to test to set before him these two ways of life. Paradise was only to be regained in the school of self sacrifices, towards the pure greatness of Man.
In these new conditions, death is a welcome friendly relief from the continuous toil of life, to live forever would be no blessing. God's Love does not leave him in the vicinity of the eternally regenerating fruit of the tree of life. Simply forbidding him to eat it would be no protection, he would in spite of it, stretch forth his hand to the forbidden fruit.
