(24) Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh.
(1) Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say: You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?(2) The woman replied to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden.(3) It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: ‘You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die.’”(4) And the serpent said to the woman, “You are not going to die,(5) but God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad.”(6) When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate.(7) Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived that they were naked; and they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves loincloths.(8) They heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of day; and the man and his wife hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.(9) The LORD God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”(10) He replied, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”(11) Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat?”(12) The man said, “The woman You put at my side—she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”(13) And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done!” The woman replied, “The serpent duped me, and I ate.” . . . (21) And the LORD God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.(22) And the LORD God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!”(23) So the LORD God banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken.
(1) ולא תגעו בו NEITHER SHALL YE TOUCH IT — She added to God’s command (which did not forbid touching the tree, but only eating of its fruit) therefore she was led to diminish from it. It is to this that the text refers (Proverbs 30:6) "Do not add to His words, lest He indict you and you be proved a liar.
תָּנֵי רַבִּי חִיָּא שֶׁלֹא תַעֲשֶׂה אֶת הַגָּדֵר יוֹתֵר מִן הָעִקָּר שֶׁלֹא יִפֹּל וְיִקְצֹץ הַנְּטִיעוֹת. כָּךְ אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא (בראשית ב, יז): כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ וגו', וְהִיא לֹא אָמְרָה כֵּן, אֶלָא (בראשית ג, ג): אָמַר אֱלֹהִים לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִמֶּנּוּ וְלֹא תִגְּעוּ בּוֹ, כֵּיוָן שֶׁרָאָה אוֹתָהּ עוֹבֶרֶת לִפְנֵי הָעֵץ נְטָלָהּ וּדְחָפָהּ עָלָיו, אָמַר לָהּ הָא לָא מִיתַת, כְּמָה דְּלָא מִיתַת בְּמִקְרְבֵיהּ, כֵּן לָא מִיתַת בְּמֵיכְלֵיהּ, אֶלָּא (בראשית ג, ה): כִּי יֹדֵעַ אֱלֹהִים כִּי בְּיוֹם וגו'.
Rabbi Chiya taught, That means that you must not make the fence more than the principal thing, lest it fall and destroy the plants. Thus, the Holy One, blessed be God, had said, For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen. 2:17); whereas she did not say thus, but, God has said: You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it; when he [the serpent] saw her lying, he took and thrust her against it. 'Have you then died?' he said to her; 'just as you were not stricken through touching it, so will you not die when you eat of it, but for God knows that in the day you eat of it, etc.'
The Garden of Eden had everything. Bears and monkeys, fish and butterflies-everything. Even the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were there. Nothing ever died in the garden, so of course nothing was ever born to replace it. The Garden of Eden had everything, but everything was always just the same.
One day Adam and Eve came upon a crack in the big wall that surrounded the garden. Looking through the crack, they saw that in the brown dust outside the garden a tomato plant was growing. At first they could hardly recognize it. In the garden, all the tomato plants were tall and full and green with many big red tomatoes on each stem. What they saw through the crack in the wall was a puny and shriveled up little thing with just one tiny green tomato barely hanging on to one of the stems.
Every day Adam and Eve would come to the crack and peep through to see how the only thing growing outside the Garden of Eden was doing. One day the little tomato plant drooped over and turned brown.
Adam looked at Eve and said, "It never looked good, but now it looks worse."
Eve looked at Adam and said, "Whatever could have happened to it?"
They sat there for a long time, peeping through the crack in the wall at the little tomato plant that had drooped over and turned brown.
After a long while, God spoke to them saying, "The tomato plant is dead." Adam and Eve cried. They asked God, "Why did it have to die? Nothing dies here in the garden." But God would not answer this question no matter how many times they asked.
So they became angry with God. They demanded that God let them out of the Garden of Eden so they could take care of the tomato plant. God said to them, "You can leave, but you can't come back."
Well, Adam and Eve got up and walked right out of the garden and right over to the little tomato plant that had drooped over and turned brown. Inside the garden nothing needed help, and even though outside the garden everything needed help, they were sorry that they could not return.
Adam picked up the tiny green tomato and Eve planted it in the brown dust. For many days they watered the ground, kept the weeds away, and waited.
Then it happened! A green shoot poked up through the dusty ground, and in a few days it became...a tomato plant! Full and green with many big red tomatoes on each stem!
In the days that followed, when the man and the woman looked at the strong new tomato plant, they would also think of the scraggly little plant, they had peeked at through the crack in the wall. It was a funny feeling. They were happy and sad at the very same time.