Grain, on the other hand, requires a lot of work before you’re ready to eat it. Bread doesn’t grow. It’s a whole process. It’s very hard work to plow! Even looking at somebody plowing makes you tired. Back and forth all day long and the next day and the next day. Today even with diesel machines you see it’s a heavy job. And then there’s the sowing and harvesting and sheathing and winnowing. It’s a very big job!
But grass, if you’re equipped to eat grass, then it’s the simplest matter in the world. Cows don’t have to go to the bakery. Cows don’t have to go to the grocery store; they don’t have to slave away all week at a job from 9 to 5. Their parnassah comes easy. And so, if Adam would have remained with the first proposition, with that gezeirah of “You shall eat grass,” he could have lived a life of ease and devoted his entire career to ruchniyus, to making progress. He would have lived a happy and successful existence.
And yet we’re told that Adam wept when he heard the decree. Not only he wept; ֹ̇עוָמּ¿„ יוָינ≈ﬠּו‚¿לָז – His eyes flowed with tears! It means that tears rained down his cheeks and he begged the Almighty not to give him this gift! And we don’t understand that at all! Because to be physically satisfied with grass, to get all the vitamins and nutrients that we need from grass, what could be better?
