Musar for Genesis 3:7

The Sages have said: "Intelligence is a sense of shame and a sense of shame is intelligence." For regarding Adam and Eve, it is said: "The two of them were naked and yet they felt no shame" (Gen. 2:25). And they did not understand what modesty is and they could not distinguish between good and evil. But, after they had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, it is said: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened" (Gen. 3:7).

The death penalty for striking father or mother, or even for only cursing them, is due to the Torah regarding father and mother as G–d's partners, since they contribute two thirds in producing a child. They deserve a degree of respect similar to that due to G–d Himself (21,15, or 17). The reason the Torah inserts the penalty for kidnapping between the penalty for striking and the penalty for cursing father or mother, is to teach us that all these three sins are closely connected; one of these sins usually is the cause for the next one. All three are due to the pollutant man has absorbed since yielding to the serpent's seduction in גן עדן. The Midrash Hagadol Genesis 3,7, says that Adam was a thief, since he ate what did not belong to him. He was גונב דעת עליון, he deceived, or better, tried to deceive G–d. Misrepresentation in order to put oneself in a better light fraudulently is the worst kind of stealing (Mechilta on Mishpatim item 13).

The reason that these numbers need to be found in the construction of the תפילין is the statement of the Talmud Kidushin 35, based on: למען תהיה תורת השם בפיך that the entire Torah is compared to תפילין (Exodus 13,9).