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LOBBY
Courses
Eating from the Tree of Life: A Course on the Zohar: Trees of the Garden
Translated Texts
TREES OF THE GARDEN
Zohar I (Bereshith) 35a f. INTRODUCTION The beginning of the Zohar spoke about the very beginnings of
the creation. This selection speaks about a later point in the
story of Genesis: the Garden of Eden and the mistake of Adam and
Eve. You might want to re-read the Biblical story, in Genesis
chapters 2 and 3, before looking at this Zohar text. It would
also be worthwhile to read Psalm 104, an enthusiastic praise of
the natural world. The Zohar blends images from these two Biblical
passages. The midrash below is particularly important as a background to
the Zohar's imagery and ideas. It addresses the apparent contradiction
between two versions of how human beings were created. In Genesis
chapter 1 (verse 27) human beings are created in the image of
God, male and female. In Genesis chapter 2 (verses 21-22), God
makes the first man, Adam, out of the earth, and then takes one
of his ribs and makes the first woman out of it. At least that
is how the verses are usually translated into English. In Hebrew
things are more ambiguous. The same word, ha-adam, means "human
beings" or "human being", "man", or "Adam". Also, the word tsela,
translated as "rib", can also mean "side". The midrash (Genesis Rabbah 8:1) plays on these possibilities
to reconcile the two versions of human creation. Rabbi Yirmeyah ben El'azar said: The Blessed Holiness created
the first human being with both genders, as it is written, "Male
and female [God] created them" {Genesis 1:27}. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman [agreed and] said: The Blessed Holiness
created the first human being double-faced [with two fronts of
the body], and then sawed them apart and made backs for them,
a back for one and a back for the other. Other scholars objected: It is written "[God] took one of his
ribs" {Genesis 1:21}! [The word understood as "rib" is tsela-
see Hebrew text below] [Rabbi Shmuel] answered: It means "one of the two sides [of the
double being]". As Scripture says, "For the tsela of the Sanctuary..."
-- where the translation of tsela is "side".
[Gen. 2:21,22]
TREES OF THE GARDEN TEXT Rabbi Abba said: Why is it written, "The tree of life in the middle
of the garden, and the tree of knowing good and bad..." "The tree of knowing good and bad": From here on, the letter 'samekh' begins to appear. What does
it mean? "[God] _s_ealed the flesh in her place". She had been in his side; one was
in the side of the other. Indeed, the Blessed Holiness uprooted them and transplanted them
to another place, and turned them face to face, so they would
endure. That is how worlds are sustained. The Blessed Holiness
uproots them and plants them in another place, and they endure
in completeness. The Zohar returns to the words of Genesis. The name of the Hebrew
letter samekh means "supporting" or "sustaining". This letter
appears for the first time in the word vayisgor ("sealed") in
Genesis 2:21: Vayapeil Adonai Elohim tardeima al ha-adam vayishan, vayikach
achat mitsal-otav vayisgor basar tachtena. Truly "the work of My hands" -- no other creations worked on them.
It is also written, "On the day you plant, you make it grow..."
-- on the same day that they were planted in the world, they became
corrupt. Genesis 2:16-17: The Zohar is paraphrasing a legalistic passage in the Talmud,
Sanhedrin 56a-b. Here in the Zohar, this is a bit of a smoke-screen
for the mystical teaching which comes next. To look at a translation of the Talmudic passage with explanatory commentary,
click here.
The Zohar also draws on images from earlier midrash, especially
from Genesis Rabbah, the major collection of imaginative interpretations
of Genesis. The early midrash is a rich source of imagery. Also,
for a scholarly reader, references to midrash would make the Zohar's
teachings feel familiar, camouflaging how radical they are.
Today, feminist interpreters, beginning in the 1970s with Phyllis
Trible (see her book God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality) have revived
this midrashic understanding, which makes the story of Adam and
Eve much more egalitarian than the way it had conventionally been
understood.
Despite all its borrowings from earlier midrash, this Zohar passage
is specifically kabbalistic in at least two ways. Its understanding
of what Adam and Eve did wrong is kabbalistic, and challenging.
And every image in it, beginning with the trees and rivers of
the Garden, is an image of God.
Zohar I (Bereshith) 35a f.
Genesis 2:9:
Vayitsmach Adonai Elohim min ha-adama kol eits nechmad l'mar-eh
v'tov l'ma-achal, v'eits hachayim b'toch hagan, v'eits hada-at
tov vara.
"YHVH God caused to sprout from the earth every tree pleasant
to see and good to eat, and the tree of life in the middle of
the garden, and the tree of knowing good and bad."
The tree of life: We have learned that it is a five-hundred-year
journey (high, or around), and all the waters of creation divide
from beneath it.
Truly, the tree of life is in the middle of the garden. It receives
all the waters of creation, and they divide from beneath it. The
outward-flowing river dwells above the garden and enters into
it, and from there its waters divide in many directions.
The garden receives them all, and then they flow out from it,
and divide into many streams below, "for all the living creatures
of the field to drink".
Psalm 104:10-11:
Ham'shaleyach m'ayanim ban'chalim, bein harim y'haleichun, yashku
kol chay'to sadai, yisb'ru f'ra-im ts'ma-am.
"[God] makes springs gush forth in streams, moving between the
hills, for all the living creatures to drink, for the wild donkeys
to slake their thirst..."
Just as they flow out from the world on high, and water the high
mountains of pure balsam, so, after coming to the tree of life,
they divide from beneath it to every place, each in its own way.
"And the tree of knowing good and bad": why is it called that,
when this tree is not in the middle? "The tree of knowing good
and bad" -- what is it?
eits hada-at tov vara.
It suckles from both sides and knows them, like someone suckling
sweet and bitter, and because it suckles from both sides, and
knows them and dwells between them, it is called this, "good and
bad".
And all the other plants dwell above it.
And all the other plants on high are joined to it.
And they are called "the cedars of Lebanon". What are the cedars
of Lebanon? They are the six days on high, the six days of creation
which we speak of, the "cedars of Lebanon which He planted" --
they really are plants, they continue to endure.
The Zohar is quoting again from Psalm 104.
this time Psalm 104:16:
Yisb'u atsei Adonai, arzei L'vanon asher nata.
"The trees of YHVH drink their fill, the cedars of Lebanon which
He planted."
Rabbi Abba said: How do we know that Adam and Eve were plants?
It is written: "the sprout of My planting, the work of My hands
in which I take pride". 
In English this is usually translated, "YHVH God caused a deep
sleep to fall on the man, and he slept, and He [God] took one
of his ribs, and sealed (vayisgor) the flesh in its place". But
the Zohar understands it like the midrash quoted above in the introduction: "YHVH God caused a deep sleep
to fall on the [two-gendered] human, and it slept, and He took
one of its sides, and sealed the flesh in her place" (in the place
the woman had been taken from).
Isaiah 60:21
V'ameich kulam tsadikim, l'olam yirshu arets, neitser m'ta-ai,
ma-aseh yadai l'hitpa-er.
"Your nation are all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever;
[they are] the sprout of my planting, the work of My hands in
which I take pride."
In traditional communities this verse is well-known; it is quoted
at the beginning of Pirke Avot ("Ethics of the Fathers"), which
is studied every Shabbat afternoon during the spring and summer.
We have learned: the plants were like the antennae of grasshoppers,
and their light was faint, they did not shine. When they were
planted and healed, they grew in light, and were called cedars
of Lebanon. Adam and Eve too -- until they were planted they did
not grow in light, and they gave off no fragrance, until they
were uprooted and transplanted and healed appropriately.
Isaiah 17:11:
B'yom nit-eich t'sagseigi, uvaboker zar-eich tafrichi, neid katsir
b'yom nachala uch'eiv anush.
"On the day you plant, you make it grow; on the morning you sow
it, you make it blossom; but the branches wither away in a day
of sickness and mortal pain."
The Zohar quotes only the beginning but it is referring to the
whole verse, and alluding to a midrashic teaching that the whole
story of Adam and Eve in the garden happened in one day.
"YHVH God commanded the human..."
We have learned [in the Talmud, concerning the seven commandments
that are binding on non-Jews]: "Commanded" can only refer to [the
prohibition of] idolatry; "YHVH" -- this [forbids] 'blessing [euphemism
for "cursing"] the Name'; "God" [Elohim] -- these are the judges
[elohim also means "judges"; a society must have a system of justice].
"The human" -- this [forbids] murder; "saying" -- this [forbids]
prohibited sexual relations; "from all the trees of the garden"
[means] not to rob; "eat, yes, eat" [means] not to eat a limb
from a living animal.
-- This is well said.
"From all the trees of the garden eat, yes, eat" -- they were
permitted all, to eat from them as one. For we see that Abraham
ate, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets ate, and they lived.
But since this tree is the tree of death, anyone who takes it
by itself dies, since they have taken the poison of death. And
so, "on the day you eat from it you will die, yes, die" -- because
you have separated the plants.
Vay'tsav Adonai Elohim al ha-adam leimor: Mikol eits hagan achol
tocheil. Umei-eits hada-at tov vara lo tochal mimenu, ki b'yom
acholcha mimenu mot tamut.
"YHVH God commanded the human, saying: From all the trees of the
garden, eat, yes, eat. But from the tree of knowing good and bad
-- do not eat from it, for on the day you eat from it you will
die, yes, die."
COMMENTARY: TREES OF THE GARDEN
Again, drawing on the Torah and earlier Midrash, the Zohar conjures
up a rich, complex image of God. The image is more consistent
than in the previous passage, which mixed botanical, sexual and
verbal imagery. Here there is a cosmic landscape of primordial
trees, water, mountains and plants, and all of them are aspects
of God. Some of the symbolism is spelled out clearly for readers
who know other passages of the Zohar. For example, the Cedars
of Lebanon are the six days of Creation, which elsewhere in the
Zohar are correlated with the first six Sefirot after Binah (the seventh day, Shabbat, is Malkhut).
Some of the imagery is not explained and some of it may not have
an explanation; it may simply be evocative. The overall picture
is most important: God is a flowing, living, yet grounded and
enduring world.
The Tree of Life is the Sefirah Tif'eret, God beyond us, the object of yearning. He is "in the middle"
as the unifying centre of the Sefirot.
The Tree of Knowing Good and Bad (or "Knowledge of Good and Evil")
is Malkhut. She is "not in the middle" in the way that Tif'eret is. But
she is present with us in this world in which good and bad are
mixed; she is open to both good and bad, taking them both in.
The mistake of Adam and Eve disrupted the wholeness of the garden
world, leaving the broken world we know and live in. What was
their mistake? The Zohar is reticent about this. It even camouflages
what it is going to tell us by first quoting from the Talmud a
legalistic interpretation of the commandment not to eat from the
tree. The Zohar can admire such an interpretation ("this is well
said") but law is not its real interest.
According to the Zohar, we misunderstand what was expected of
Adam and Eve if we think they were not supposed to eat from the
Tree of Knowing. They were supposed to eat from it -- God said,
"from all the trees of the garden, eat"! They were supposed to
eat from it, because eating from the Tree of Knowing is intimacy
with Malkhut, which our holy ancestors and prophets experienced.
But they were not to eat from the Tree of Knowing by Herself --
only together with the Tree of Life, Tif'eret. Their sin was tearing
apart these Trees, these aspects of the divine, and focusing on
one only. This left them attached to the natural cycle of life
and death, which is in Malkhut, and disconnected from eternal
life, which is in Tif'eret.
This is a deep and challenging idea. One way of thinking about
monotheism is that there may be a variety of powers, but we owe
our worship to only one of them, God. The Zohar's view is almost
the opposite. God includes a variety of powers; to worship only
one of them is the greatest mistake. The Zohar depicts God in
terms of plurality, but it is a plurality that is a unity. To
look for a simpler unity by concentrating on part of that plurality
tears apart the plurality into disunity. And to the Zohar, this
disunity is not just an illusion, but real: Adam and Eve actually
caused a rift in the divine.
Adam and Eve's mistake was to connect only with Malkhut, the divine
presence manifested in nature. It could be argued that the more
common mistake of religion in the generations preceding ours was
to worship only Tif'eret, the aspect of God imagined as distant
and as male. This text can be read as a warning to us to try to
right the balance rather than tipping things all the way in the
other direction.
The Trees are torn apart by Adam and Eve, but in the imagery of
the Zohar Adam and Eve are also trees -- "Adam and Eve were plants".
(This surprising image has no source in earlier midrash as far
as I know.) Adam and Eve's tearing apart of the two Trees has
a creative counterpart in God's work of uprooting Adam and Eve.
The Zohar accepts the view found in the midrash that Adam and Eve began life as one double-faced, two-gendered
being, with the two faces looking away from each other. The midrash
says that they had to be sawed apart. The Zohar, using the image
of Adam and Eve as plants, expresses the same idea with the image
of uprooting. But then "the Blessed Holiness... turned them face
to face". Only as two separate beings could they face each other,
communicate, join in intimate union. Together in this way, they
found a greater wholeness than what they could have had before.
"They endure in completeness".
In the symbol-world of the Zohar, the same image can have different
meanings and the same meaning can have different images. The two
Trees are Tif'eret and Malkhut, separated by Adam and Eve's error.
But Adam and Eve themselves also embody Tif'eret and Malkhut.
According to the Zohar, Tif'eret and Malkhut emerged within God
as one being and had to be separated. Now they enjoy the possibility
of intimate union -- and run the risk of being torn apart.
This is another image of unity and plurality: the undivided unity
of the original being gives way to separation, which leads to
unity in plurality, the unity of two separate beings who choose
to be together.
TREES OF THE GARDEN: QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
In this retelling of the Garden of Eden story, how are Adam and
Eve different from depictions of them which you are familiar with?
Can you identify with the first human beings in this version of
their story?
The Zohar says:
"The Blessed Holiness uprooted them and transplanted them to another
place, and turned them face to face, so they would endure. That
is how worlds are sustained. The Blessed Holiness uproots them
and plants them in another place, and they endure in completeness."
I've commented on the parts about "uprooting" and "turning face
to face" but not on the rest of this paragraph, about sustaining
worlds, and transplanting to another place, because I don't know
what it means. The imagery strikes me as powerful and disturbing.
How do you understand it? How can we work with this imagery of
uprooting and transplanting?