The Knowledge of Good and Evil is our koan for this week. To Zen Buddhists, this is the familiar koan of the opposites. To Jews, it is the Tree of Life that is important. It has its own prayer, which we will come to. In Christianity, Paul turned this into a great meshugas, with the Fall and Original Sin and only Jesus Christ/the Messiah/God’s anointed can redeem us from this Sin by sacrificing himself (as God) to his Father (God). Young-Earth Creationists have it worst, believing that Adam and the Fall must be historical or else God himself cannot save us from himself, and He is condemned to sending all of us to Hell for Eternity, no matter what Yeshua bar Yosef said about salvation by faith.
I’m not the one making all that up.
So in the Garden of Eden, a talking snake told Eve that the forbidden trees had good, tasty fruit, which she saw was so, and so she ate some, and gave Adam some, which he too ate. And this magic fruit transformed their minds so that they saw Good and Evil everywhere, specifically in their being naked and previously unashamed. But now they were ashamed and made garments of fig leaves, even though there was nobody else to see them; and they hid from God when he came to walk in the Garden, so he tossed them out and did a number of things besides that I won’t go into today. Except the one bit about putting
an angel with a flaming sword that turns in all directions
at the entrance to the garden, so that humans cannot get to the Tree of Life and become as Gods, knowing Good and Evil. That’s as good a description of the nature of a koan as
a flaming ball of iron stuck in one’s throat, that one can neither swallow nor get out.
until it isn’t, of course.
Anyway, the Garden of Eden is as good an allegory as I have heard.
What are we trying to do with this koan? Well, as usual, we are on the path to selflessness, compassion for all sentient beings, and much more in that vein. Good and evil, light and dark, sleep and waking…
Within all light is darkness
But explained it cannot be by darkness that one-sided is alone.
In darkness there is light
But, here again, by light one-sided it is not explained.
Light goes with darkness
As the sequence does of steps in walking.
Sandokai, translated by Rev. Master Jiyu Kennett
Jews would express it in other words, but they agree on giving up Good and Evil and turning to Truth. Not just truth in words and deeds, but in going beyond them. One of the great Kabbalists, Isaac Luria, known as the Ari, explained it as God scattering sparks of His divine light across the world, a spark in each of us, and our task is to reunite our spark with the infinite light. I wrote about that long ago in
D'var Torah: What is Atonement?
where at-one-ment in English conveys precisely that goal. They won’t tell you this, but that is no accident.
The Prayer
The Tree of Life prayer is said after a Torah reading, when returning the Torah scroll to the Ark.
Eitz Chayim hee: Returning the Torah to the Ark. (Siddur Sim Shalom, p.426)
Eitz chayim hee la’machazikim ba v’tom’che-ah m’u-shar
D’rache-ah dar’chei no-am v’chol n’tee-vo-teh-ah shalom
Ha-shee-vei-nu Adonai eilecha v’na-shuva chadesh yamei-nu k’kedem.
It is a tree of life for those who grasp it,
and all who uphold it are blessed. (Proverbs 3:18)
עֵץ־חַיִּ֣ים הִ֭יא לַמַּחֲזִיקִ֣ים בָּ֑הּ וְֽתֹמְכֶ֥יהָ מְאֻשָּֽׁר
Its ways are pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. (Proverbs 3:17)
דְּרָכֶ֥יהָ דַרְכֵי־נֹ֑עַם וְֽכָל־נְתִ֖יבוֹתֶ֣יהָ שָׁלֽוֹם
Help us turn to You, and we shall return.
Renew our lives as in days of old. (Lamentations 5:21)
הֲשִׁיבֵ֨נוּ יְהוָ֤ה׀ אֵלֶ֙יךָ֙ ׳וְנָשׁוּב׳ ״וְֽנָשׁ֔וּבָה״ חַדֵּ֥שׁ יָמֵ֖ינוּ כְּקֶֽדֶם
Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Olam told me once that there are as many interpretations of the Tower of Babel as there are Rabbis. (We have others in Zen.) This is clearly true for all of Genesis, especially the Creation and the Garden of Eden, and most especially the two Trees. Is the written Torah the Tree of Life? Some say so. Or is it the teaching? Some say so. Or is it the inspired Wisdom behind all of that? Some say so. Or should we stop trying to pin it down in words, and get on with it? I say so.
Christians get all of this further tangled up, not only in the doctrines of the Fall, Original Sin, and Redemption, but in Faith vs. Works, the whole idea of Dogma, and all sorts of other foofaraw that Jesus never spoke of nor heard of. Christianity can be a decent religion that helps people learn to behave better, but it offers too many excuses for going off the rails for my taste.
Another Sabbath Prayer
One can take observances like the Jewish Shabbos too far, but they have their place, particularly in reminding us that we can do better, that the world could be otherwise. Here is a piece of a prayer of gratitude for Shabbos, and for what we teach ourselves on Shabbos.
Yism'chu V'mal'chut'cha יִשְׂמְחוּ בְמַלְכוּתְךָ
V’hashevi’i rotsiso bo, v’kidashto.
Khemdas yomim oso koroso.
Zeykher l’ma’asey v’reyshis.
וּבַשְּׁבִיעִי רָצִֽיתָ בּוֹ וְקִדַּשְׁתּוֹ,
חֶמְדַּת יָמִים אוֹתוֹ קָרָֽאתָ,
זֵֽכֶר לְמַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית:
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And the seventh day, You found favor in it and sanctified it.
Most desirable of days, You called it.
A remembrance of the days of creation
And the entire prayer, sung.
The version that our Cantor sang on Shabbos is my all-time favorite Jewish prayer, but I haven’t been able to find that one on the Web.