Commento su Genesi 2:17

THOU SHALT NOT EAT OF IT. He admonishes him against eating the fruit, for the tree itself is not edible. And so it says further on: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden.³²⁸Genesis 3:3. Similarly, And eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree³⁴⁸II Kings 18:31. [means “of the fruit of his vine and of the fruit of his fig-tree].” Likewise, In toil shalt thou eat it³⁴⁹Genesis 3:17. means “eat its fruit.”

ומעץ הדעת, the tree in the middle of the garden, in close proximity to the tree of life mentioned previously (verse 9) The meaning of חיים in connection with that tree is equivalent to the meaning of the words in Deuteronomy 30:19 החיים והמות נתתי לפניך, “I have placed life and death (to choose) before you.” [we may understand this to mean that the tree of life, if its fruit were eaten, would result in life of infinite duration, whereas eating from the tree next to it would result in life being shortened. Ed.]

ומעץ הדעת טוב ורע, one of the operative, though apparently superfluous, words in this verse is the word ממנו, “from it.” Seeing that the verse had already commenced with the words ומעץ, “and from the tree,” this word appears redundant. It may therefore have been inserted in order to emphasise the severity of the effects of ignoring this warning. Alternately, the word refers to the fruit, seeing the fruit of the tree had not been mentioned at all previously. Interestingly, G’d had not forbidden Adam to eat from the fruit of the tree of life, but, on the contrary, the fruit of this tree was included in the instruction to eat “from all the trees of the garden you shall surely eat.” This subject is dealt with at greater length in the kabbalistic writings of our sages.

לא תאכל ממנו, “you must not eat thereof.” A reference to the fruit of the tree, as the trunk itself was inedible and man therefore had not been cautioned against eating it.

Am Tage, an welchem du von ihm issest, mußt du sterben. Wohl nur: verfällst du dem Tode; denn sie starben ja in der That nicht sogleich; vielmehr ward infolge der Nichtachtung des göttlichen Verbotes der Tod über sie verhängt. Ist doch der Tod anerkannt auch heute ein noch ungelöstes Problem der Physiologie. Soll doch auch einst, wenn die Menschheit sich erst zur vollen Rückkehr zu Gott durchgearbeitet hat, auch der Tod von der Erde verschwinden (Jesaias 25, 8), und hätte diese Periode für Israel nach der Lehre der Weisen schon mit מתן תורה begonnen, wenn es das göttliche Gesetz mit voller Hingebung erfüllt hätte (5a עיז). — Möglich aber, dass der Aus- pruch מות תמות auch sofort in Erfüllung gegangen. Wir finden ja auch sonst, dass an die Stelle der Todesstrafe Verbannung von der Heimat tritt, so beim Kain und dem unvorsätzlichen Totschläger. Verbannung aus der Heimat ist verjüngter Tod, der ja auch nicht eine Vernichtung des Daseins, sondern des Hierseins ist. Und so dürfte die Verbannung des Menschen aus dem Paradiese ein Tod in verjüngtem, gemildertem Maße sein. Wir haben ja keine Vorstellung von dem Leben im ג"ע. Zwischen ihm und der gewöhnlichen Erdwelt mag eine solche Kluft gewesen sein, dass der Übergang aus jenem in diese unserem Scheiden aus dieser Welt nicht unähnlich gewesen sein mag.

כי ביום אכלך ממנו מות תמות, “for on the day youwould eat from it you would surely become mortal.” Man had not been created as a mortal body, but after having sinned he was punished by becoming mortal. G-d’s warning did not mean that he would die immediately. He only had warned him that he would lose his entitlement to infinite life. At some time in the future he would not be able to escape the need to die. This is why he had to be separated from proximity to the tree of life, so that he could not regain the immortality that he had now lost.

IN THE DAY THOU EATEST THEREOF THOU SHALT SURELY DIE. At the time you eat of it, you will be condemned to die. Similarly, we find: On the day thou goest out, and walkest abroad any whither, thou shalt surely die.³⁵⁰I Kings 2:42. Said by Solomon to Shimi, that on the day he goes outside of the limits of Jerusalem he shall surely die. This does not mean that he [Shimi] is to die immediately on that day; nor does it refer to his mere knowledge thereof, namely that he is to know that he will die eventually for all the living know that they shall die.³⁵¹Ecclesiastes 9:5. But it does mean that at the time he [Shimi] goes forth from Jerusalem, he is liable to death at the hand of the king, and he will slay him when he pleases. [Similarly, in the verses:] But they shall not go in to see the holy things as they are being covered, lest they die;³⁵²Numbers 4:20. And they shall not bear sin for it, and die thereby.³⁵³Leviticus 22:9. Their intent is [not that those who transgress against these prohibitions will die immediately], but only that they will be liable to death and will die on account of this sin of theirs.
Now in the opinion of men versed in the sciences of nature, man was destined to die from the beginning of his formation, on account of his being a composite [of the four elements, and everything that is composite must revert to its original components]. But now He decreed that if he will sin he will die on account of his sin, like those who are liable to death at the hands of Heaven for such sins as a non-priest eating the Heave-offering, or a priest who has drunk wine or who does not wear the [required number of priestly] garments when performing the Service in the Sanctuary, and other cases. There the intent is that they will die prematurely on account of their sin. This is why in stating the punishment [after Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge] He said, Till thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,³⁵⁴Genesis 3:19. by your nature. In the beginning before he sinned, Adam also ate of the fruit of the tree and of the seeds of the earth; and if so, there was bound to be depletion in his body, and he was subject to the cause of existence and destruction. [Thus the opinion of the men of science.]
But in the opinion of our Rabbis,³⁵⁵Shabbath 58b. if Adam had not sinned he would have never died, since the higher soul bestows life forever, and the Will of G-d which is in him at the time of his formation would always cleave to him and he would exist forever, as I have explained in the verse, And G-d saw that it was good.³⁵⁶Above, 1:10.
Know that composition indicates destruction only in the opinion of those wanting in faith, who hold that creation came by necessity. But in the opinion of men of faith who say that the world was created by the simple Will of G-d, its existence will also continue forever as long as it is His desire. This is clear truth. That being so, In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die means that then you will be condemned to die since you will no longer exist forever by My Will. And the matter of eating [from the other trees] was to Adam at first only a source of enjoyment.³⁵⁷Ramban is aiming to answer the question: If Adam was destined at first to exist forever on account of his superior soul, what purpose did his eating serve? Ramban answers that, according to this theory, he ate not out of necessity but for enjoyment. And it is possible that the fruits of the garden of Eden were absorbed in his limbs as the Manna, and they sustain those that eat them. But when He decreed upon him, And thou shalt eat the herb of the field³⁵⁸Genesis 3:18. and with the sweat of his face he shall eat bread of the earth,³⁵⁹Ibid., Verse 19. this [the food] became a cause for decomposition since he is dust, and dust he eats, and unto dust he shall return.

מות תמות, mortality will be decreed for you as something occurring far sooner than would have been the case otherwise. Our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 19,8) explain that the word ביום does not refer to a day of our lives, i.e. a period of 24 hours, but refers to a “day” in G’d’s calendar, i.e. 1000 years in terms of our lives. Man was henceforth not to reach the age of 1000 years. Adam, who had been slated to live for 1000 years, actually lived only 930 years, having bequeathed the other 70 years to his descendants. They base this on Psalms 90,10 ימי שנותנו בהם שבעים שנה, “the number of years of our lives is 70.” [according to Rabbi David Luriah the words לבניו in this Midrash refer specifically to David. Ed.] According to the above we must conclude that the sages of the Midrash consider death per se as a curse, based on Deuteronomy 30,15 כי הרע הוא המות והטוב הוא החיים, “for life is good and death is evil.”
As to “knowledge of good and evil,” there are a number of explanations of these words. (Ibn Ezra) It may refer to the intimacy experienced between man and his wife when engaging in marital intercourse. The fruit of that tree created the mating instinct in man. The word טוב refers to copulation that is permitted and the word רע would refer to copulation which is forbidden. Adam was full of knowledge, and it is preposterous to assume that he had no concept of what is good and what is evil before he ate from that tree. However, he had lacked the biological urge to engage in marital intercourse. This is proved by the fact that after both he and his wife had eaten from the tree of knowledge they are quoted as saying that “their eyes were opened and they realised that they were naked,” in the sense that they lacked something which they had not been aware of needing. (Genesis 3,7). The meaning of the words והייתם כאלוקים, (3,5) is “you will be like the angels.” The common denominator between Adam and the angels at that stage was that both the angels and man had no inkling of the mating instinct. It is true that merely by observing the animals’ behaviour they realised that the males and females engaged in such activities, however they had no understanding of how such a process of creating progeny applied to themselves.
Alternatively, we may understand the serpent as not having the slightest idea of what the concepts טוב ורע, “good and evil” represented. Even though Chavah is not quoted in the text of having used these words, it is quite impossible to assume that the entire dialogue between the serpent and Chavah has been recorded here. Unless there had been some discussion between them before the words recorded in the text, whence did the serpent know that G’d had forbidden the fruit of the trees, as it had claimed to know? She must have learned such details from the words of the woman. Furthermore, the very opening remark of the serpent, אף, suggests that this is a continuation of the preceding parts of the dialogue which the Torah did not consider worth reporting. Nowhere else is the word אף used as the opening remark in a dialogue. (Ibn Ezra)

כי ביום אכלך ממנו מות תמות, “for on the day you eat from it you will surely become mortal.” This is not a warning of immediate death [as it would have been equivalent to the dying out of the human species. Ed.] but a warning not to forfeit eternal life on earth. There are some commentators who hold that prior to eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge even other sins would not have resulted in a death penalty, seeing man would have lacked the knowledge of good and evil which he had only acquired as a result of eating from the fruit of that tree. The meaning of מות תמות then would be that after eating from the tree of knowledge and acquiring the knowledge of good and evil, any subsequent sins were liable to be considered capital sins, with death as their punishment. Nachmanides wrote that according to the scientists of his time, man was a mortal creature already before he ate from the tree of knowledge due to the fact that he was composed of a number of different (4) raw materials and all these amalgams ultimately disintegrate. What then was the difference that occurred after Adam ate from the tree? Had he not eaten from the tree, death, when it would eventually occur, would not be as a form of punishment for a sin committed. His death would be of the same category as that of people who knowingly ate תרומה, although not being priests or members of a priest’s household, and similar examples of what are known as מיתה בידי שמים, execution at the hands of heavenly forces. Our sages, ignoring the opinion of scientists, hold that thanks to his divine soul, man would have lived on indefinitely, his soul counteracting the inherent weakness of any creature consisting of four raw materials. His sin neutralized the power of his soul to protect him from death. Actually, the belief in the mortality (eventual metamorphosis) of all phenomena which consist of more than one raw material, is held only by people who lack in true faith and believe that the existence of the universe is not due to G’d’s free will, but was the result of an immutable law of nature, long preceding the existence of any G’d. For true believers who know in their deepest heart that the universe is the result of the will of a totally free Creator, the continued existence of anything this Creator has initiated, does not pose a problem. The only thing that would put an end to the absolute life expectancy of man was the fact that he violated the commandment and ignored the warning of what would follow. It is possible that all the fruit of the various trees of the גן עדן, barring those of the tree of knowledge, were completely assimilated by the human body, as was the manna later on, and therefore did not represent a foreign body, something that undermined man’s health, resulting in his eventual death. Having eaten from the forbidden fruit, Adam once more became –in the words of his Creator- “dust you are, and to dust you must return.”