Commentaire de citation sur Les Proverbes 17:17

ועץ הדעת, a tree whose fruit results in those who eat from it gaining greater understanding of the relationship of good and evil. The word דעת, which appears here for the first time, helps us understand Genesis 4,1 והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו. Without this verse we would have been puzzled by the Torah telling us something that was so obvious. Who does not “know” his wife, especially when he had described her as “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!” (2,23) In our verse we are told that the words ידע, דעת do not primarily refer to factual knowledge but to conceptual knowledge. This also helps us to understand why relatives, as in Ruth 2,1 are referred to as מודע לאישה, “someone whom her late husband had been intimate with, had been related to by blood.” It is normal for blood relations to be concerned with the physical and emotional needs of their kin. (compare Proverbs 17,17.)