However, after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, when self-oriented desires became mixed into their consciousness, it became difficult to separate themselves from materialistic indulgence.
A2: And therefore, Hashem did not want Adam to taste from the Tree of Knowledge, since it was injurious to him, as previously explained. Really, He wanted that Adam should have no knowledge of the existence of evil at all, so that he would be entirely holy. He did not want to bring him into this intense war.
However, after he already ate from the Tree of Knowledge and internalized the evil, then Hashem said, (Bereishis 3:22-3) “Lest he stretch his hand forth and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever, thus Hashem sent him out of Gan Eden.”
Meaning: Now that Adam already internalized the mixture of evil, Hashem was concerned that if he would take also from the Tree of Life -
The root of which is on the level above the Supernal Shattering of the Vessels, which is the beginning of death and the existence of “The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,” which is not the case for what is above the Shattering, namely the Tree of Life –
The “Shattering of the Vessels” of Tohu is the ultimate source of life for unholiness, and therefore the ultimate source of death, which is a result of unholiness. This possibility of unholiness and death became manifest in the level of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,” also known as the outer aspect of Malchus of Atzilus, which is the direct source of the life and existence of beings that feel separate from Hashem and are able to choose unholy conduct, which produces death.
However, the Tree of Life, also known as Ze’eir Anpin, is higher than direct involvement with created beings that possess unholiness and death, and is not connected with the “Shattering of the Vessels of Tohu.”
Then, if Adam would eat also from it, “then it (the evil) will live forever.”
Meaning that, in truth regarding this level (of the Tree of Life) it says (Iyov 35:6-7), “If you are righteous, what does that offer Him? And if your misdeeds be many, what does that do to Him?”
The level of the Tree of Life, which is higher than the “Shattering of the Vessels,” of Tohu, is higher than being a source of life for unholiness. Since it is higher than any connection to unholiness, it is also not affected by unholiness at all. Because of this, it is able to be revealed to a Jew, or to Adam, who was the source of Jewish souls, even if he is mixed together with unholiness. However, since this Jew, or Adam, who is mixed together with unholiness also receives from the Tree of Life, which is above the concept of death, this tremendous flow of Divine Life will also come into the unholiness mixed into the person, since it is inseparable from the person himself.
If so, even if he is mixed up with evil, even if “Your misdeeds be many, etc.” nonetheless, it would still be possible that he would “live forever,” and then the evil itself would also exist forever, since it was internalized and mixed into him and it cannot be separated from him.
If so, then when he would live forever, then also the evil within him would exist forever.
And this is the opposite of the intention for creating the world, for the purpose of creation is that there must be (Yeshaya 25:8) “Death being swallowed up forever,” so that it should fulfill the verse (Devarim 13:6) “You shall exterminate (all) evil,” as in the saying (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur prayers), “And all the wickedness should go up in smoke,” which will be in the Days of Moshiach.
Since death is a byproduct of evil and sin, the eradication of all evil also removes all death forever. The ultimate purpose of creation is to accomplish this state of purity from evil and eternal life.
For the entire time of Exile is the period of refinement and removing evil.
The time of Exile is when we remove evil and sin, and thereby remove death from the world.
This refinement process is accomplished through the level of Chochmah, for “With Chochmah-Wisdom everything becomes refined,” and it separates the evil from the good.
Chochma-Wisdom has the insight to distinguish between what is good and what is bad; what is holy and what is unholy; what is forbidden and what is permitted. The advantage of Chochma-Wisdom over Bina-Understanding is that in Bina there can be many different ways to understand something, and therefore, different possible conclusions in each case, whether something is forbidden or permitted, and therefore, whether it can be used for holiness or not (similar to how there can be different opinions in the Gemara).
However, in Chochma there is the insight to “see” the correct conclusion come to a definite judgement regarding the status of each thing (similar to the final halachic decision, as rendered in the Shulchan Aruch).
Therefore, specifically in Chochma the complete power to differentiate between holy and unholy resides, and therefore, Chochma has the ability to separate holiness from unholiness.
Therefore, Chochmah is called Din-Judgement. This concept (that Chochma is connected to severity and judgement) is unlike what the earlier Kabbalists understood, that Chochmah is entirely Kindness, since it is the source of Kindness. However, the Chayat, one of the later Kabbalists, proposed that it also contains Din-Judgement. The Arizal agreed with him and praised him for this explanation.
He said that this concept corresponds to how it is explained in the Zohar, in the section titled “the Idra” (Zohar vol. III, 128b): “The hidden Chochmah rests and settles in its place, like fine wine settles on its dregs.”
Wine contains dregs, which become separated from the wine over time, producing pure wine at the top of the barrel. This separation of the dregs happens through the wine being “calm and settled” in one place, allowing the dregs to sink to the bottom. So too, in Chochma, which is “calm and settled,” insight is able to separate the “dregs” of unholiness from the “wine” of holiness.
The “Chayat” is Rabbi Yehuda Chayat, who wrote a commentary on the Sefer Maareches HaElokus. He lived around the time of the Spanish inquisition in the late 1400’s. The Sefer Maareches HaElokus is an ancient Kabbala Sefer widely used in the earlier generations.
The "Idra” (lit. “gathering”) is a section of the Zohar when Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai gathered his students and colleagues for a special study session where each person said a new discourse of Kabbalah connected to a different aspect of the spiritual levels of Atzilus and higher. These discourses are brought in the Zohar of Parshas Naso. (This is also sometimes called “Idra Rabbah,” the greater “Idra” to distinguish it from “Idra Zuta,” the smaller Idra, which was when Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai gathered his students and colleagues on the day he passed away to share new insights in Kabbalah. Since that collection of teachings is shorter than the collection in Parshas Naso, it is referred to as “Idra Zuta,” the smaller “Idra.”)
[We find in Pirkei Avos (4:20) that refined wisdom is compared to aged wine, and less refined wisdom to new wine. When someone spends many years learning and reviewing a topic, he gains insight into the topic in a way of “seeing” the concepts, Chochma, as opposed to one who learned it recently, in which case even if he understands it, he doesn’t “see” the ideas instinctively, he “hears” the ideas in Bina. One who has spent more time on a concept has already filtered out the “dregs” of improper understanding, whereas someone less familiar with the concepts still needs to remove those “dregs” of misconception).
This ability to refine contained in Chochma is needed since there are things requiring refinement, to have the evil removed from them, and this is accomplished through Gevurah-Severity, as it is contained in Chochmah.
The power of refinement in Chochma is referred to as “Gevura of Chochma.”
And on this the verse states, (Tehillim 94:12) “Fortunate is the man to whom Yud-Hei (Hashem) sends suffering.” Even suffering, which is for the purpose of removing evil, come from the level of Yud-Hei, the first two letters of the Divine name.
As is known, that suffering is for the purpose of separating out the evil, since Kelipah is likened to a leech, which sucks blood and immediately dies. This is the meaning of what is written, (Mishlei 30:15) “And the ‘leech’ has two children,” referring to two types of Kelipa, which the verse compares to leeches.
This is also the idea of the “goat that is sent off,” i.e., the goat sent to be pushed off of a cliff on Yom Kippur as atonement for our sins, as well as the idea that (Bereishis 32:4,14) “Yaakov sent... a gift to his brother Eisav... two hundred male goats.” The reason for sending off the goats is that by giving a portion of life to the kelipa, he separates it from his own domain.
Imagine there were two brothers, one righteous and one wicked. Their father passed away, leaving an inheritance that is jointly owned by both of them. In order for the righteous brother to remove any claim on his portion of the inheritance from his brother, he must first give his wicked brother his portion of the inheritance. Similarly, kelipa has a “claim” on us since we sin during the year, or are at least somewhat connected to unholiness in some way. In order to remove kelipa’s “claim” on us, we give him a goat on Yom Kippur in place of our own connection to unholiness. (This only works if the person also does Teshuva and repents of his sins).
This shows that every Jew has a mixture of unholiness in himself that needs to be separated out, using Chochma. For example, the Torah, which is from Chochma, teaches how to perform the Yom Kippur service of sending the goat.
This is what must be done once Adam already tasted from the Tree of Knowledge and became mixed with evil. Then the process of refining is necessary until the evil is separated out by removing all sparks of holiness within the Kelipah.
All of this refinement process is by way of Chochmah, for “Through Chochmah it becomes refined,” since it contains within itself also Gevuros-Severities, in order to allow for “Yud-Hei sends him suffering,” and as is written, “Just as a man rebukes his son, so too, Hashem rebukes you.”
The letters of Yud and Hei correspond to Chochma (Yud) and Bina (Hei). The fact that suffering comes from these two levels is because they contain the Gevura-Severity of Chochma, which is what affects purification and refinement, and suffering is for the purpose of purification from sin (or physicality).
Which is not the case regarding the level of Keser-Divine Will, which is above Chochmah, for Keser is pure Rachamim-Mercy, and on that level “Darkness is equivalent to light.” (Tehillim 139:12)
Since, at that level, spiritual darkness does not have any effect, there is also no need for the removal of that darkness. This is why purification comes from Chochma, since it is the first level that is affected by unholiness, and therefore sees the need to remove unholiness.
Therefore, there is a concern that, “Lest he stretch his hand forth and take also from the Tree of Life,” and then “he will live forever,” even if he sins, since “If you are righteous, what does that offer Him.”
Since he is on the level of Pnimius-internalization, therefore the evil that is bound and fixed within him would also be sustained, which would be the opposite of the ultimate intent of creation.
As is written in the Zohar regarding Rebbi Acha in the village of Tarsha during a plague: He removed the judgement against them through the recitation of the passages of the Ketores [Incense offering] in the place where the plague struck, and thereby stopped the plague.
He was then told from Heaven that this was not appropriate, since the people there remained in a state of guilt, and hadn’t done Teshuva (repentance) for their sins.
If he would have first inspired them to do Teshuva and then removed the plague by reciting the passages of the Ketores, that would have been fine, but to stop the plague while they are still sinning is only adding life to unholiness.
(The end of the story is that he was told from Heaven to go back to the city and bring the people to repent, which he did, and the people stopped sinning and became devoted to serving Hashem).
We see from this story that as long as someone is connected to sin and evil, then granting him additional life also gives additional life to unholiness, since it becomes mixed into the person.
Therefore, immediately, Hashem “sent him [Adam] from Gan Eden to work the land from which he was taken.”
This ‘work’ is the process of spiritual refinement of the physical world through seeding, plowing and harvesting, until grain and produce are ready for consumption.
Then, afterwards, when one eats from that food and uses the energy to say, “Hear Yisrael, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One, and you shall love Hashem...” he refines and elevates that food and the entire earth that the food is derived from.
At that point, he [Adam] needed to physically traverse the “earth which he was derived from,” and to refine the sparks of holiness that fell into it from his sin by eating there from its produce and using that energy to serve Hashem.
Originally, Adam and Chava were lived in the semi-spiritual place called “Gan Eden,” and didn’t need to work the “land” of that place for it to produce food. After the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, the entire world descended spiritually and the earth became coarser. Because of his sin, Sparks of Holiness fell into everything in the physical world, including the physical earth. In order to extract the Sparks of Holiness from the earth, this process of working the ground to produce food was needed, so that by eating the produce that came about with his effort and sweat, and using that energy to serve Hashem in prayer would elevate those sparks.
Chapter 2 (ב)
Q4: Now, we must understand: How did Hashem originally intend for the world to be?
If Adam would not have known anything about good and evil, but evil existed in the world, then how would the sparks of holiness become elevated and refined? This must be done by man, but how would man do it if Adam and his descendants did not even know about the existence of evil?
We said before that by Adam working the ground and eating from its produce and using that energy to serve Hashem, the sparks of holiness in the world become elevated and uplifted.
