GREAT SCOPE

Who was Adam whose sin played such a pivotal role in the history and destiny of man?

“Adam extended from the earth to the firmament... from one end of the earth to the other.” (Talmud - Chagigah 12a)

This statement of the Sages has a profound spiritual dimension. There was no facet of creation, from the most mundane to the most sublime, that Adam did not encompass. Nothing was hidden from him. Moreover, no one ever comprehended better than Adam how each of his actions could determine the course of creation. The angels knew that, ultimately, it was not they who controlled him, but he who controlled them, for the Divine Will made the functioning of earth dependent upon the deeds of man.

“[After Adam's death] his two heels were like two suns.” (Talmud - Bava Basra 58a)

Even after his sin and after death, the holiness of Adam was so awesome that the least significant part of his body, his heel, was as brilliant as the sun.

Having these barest insights into the greatness of Adam, we still know nothing of his awesome nature; it is sufficient to know that the distance between his loftiness and ourselves is like the distance between heaven and earth. Only in these terms can we hope to have a faint understanding of his sin. Surely, however, we cannot either understand it unless we banish from our minds the foolish myth of “apples in Eden.”

ADAM'S SIN

Adam's 'world' was much different from our own. He tilled and planted without tools: he was conscious in his everyday life that he worked the Garden of Eden through the performance of positive commandments and he protected it by means of avoiding transgression.

We, too, 'know' this, but only in an abstract sense. We know that our deeds matter, but as part of a physical, cause-and-effect world, we find ourselves seeing and feeling the efficacy of medicines and surgeons, of bulldozers and bricklayers, of bombs and physicists. True, the Talmud says, “it is not the poisonous snake that kills, but the transgression that kills” (Brachos 33a). The snake, the bullet, the runaway auto, the disease - these are but the messengers that carry out a decree sealed by human misdeed. They are no more the cause of death than the white sheet pulled over the face of the expired patient.

We may find it so hard to believe that spiritual causes bring about physical effects, that most of us are quick to point to impressive lists of external factors that caused them to be so. But this is nothing more than a symptom of God's concealment in this world of hiddenness. The great Jewish believers knew it to be so:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in God and who makes God the source of his trust.” (Jeremiah 17:7)

Chidushei HaRim explains that the two halves of the verse are dependent upon one another: the more one trusts in God, the more God justifies his trust with the result that his trust in God continues to increase. Our greatest people found no difficulty in casting their lots for service of God without knowing where the next morning's breakfast would come from. Indeed, Torah was given only to the generation that ate the manna (Midrash - Mechilta). They learned in their everyday lives that they could live in a barren wilderness without fear, in secure confidence that God's promise was their assurance of the next days sustenance. Only after developing such faith was Israel worthy of receiving the Torah.

As the Kotzker Rebbe said, Torah greatness can be attained only when there is indifference to need for financial security. Torah is the wisdom of God; the Torah sage unites his own mind with the intelligence of the Creator. To the extent that he is concerned with his needs in this world, he cannot escape its snares to ascend to a higher one.

For us, mired in our work ethic and 40-hour week, faith is a fringe benefit we can afford only after having attained bogus security. After telling an inspiring story of a great tzaddik's perfect faith, we return our shoulders to the wheel. Adam not only knew - but saw - that his service of God was the determining factor in his success.