October 22, 2022|כ"ז תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ג Gan Eden: How To Enjoy Life By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

A Brit, a Frenchman and a Russian are viewing a painting of Adam and Eve prancing around in the Garden of Eden. "Look at their reserve, their calm," muses the Brit. "They must be British." "Nonsense," the Frenchman disagrees. "They're so beautiful. Clearly, they are French." "No clothes, no shelter," the Russian points out, "they have only an apple to eat, and they're being told this is paradise. They are definitely Russian."

What is the story of Gan Eden all about? In some sense the story portrays an ideal type of existence that we should strive for. Yes, we were sent from Gan Eden, but we still read about this life as some perfected ideal that perhaps we can journey to in our own lifetimes. Because the story of Gan Eden is about enjoyment. It deals with the question of the role of enjoyment in this world. Is enjoyment good or bad and how do we achieve it.

Well, it may depend on how you understand God’s command to man at the beginning of time. The Torah states, “Vayetzav Hashem Elokim al ha’adam laimor mikol etz hagan akhol tokhel” – “and God commanded man saying from all trees of the garden you should eat.” Then God tells man, “u’mai’aitz ha’da’at tov vara lo tokhail mimenu” – “don’t eat from the tree of good and evil,” “ki b’yom akhalkha mimenu mot tamut” – “because you will die or become mortal on the day that you eat from it.” The simple reading of the text is that God didn’t merely command man not to eat from the forbidden fruit, but He also commanded man to eat that which was permitted to him. The Meshech Chochma explains that God’s mitzvah for man to eat is not simply “l’hachayot nafsho,” or to enable him to live, but it’s a mitzvah “laihanot mipri hagan” – to enjoy the fruits of the garden. In commanding man to eat from the fruits of the garden, God is telling man, “Don’t just eat in order to live. Enjoy My world.” We don’t eat fruit simply to satiate ourselves. Maybe that’s why we eat vegetables. But fruits are sweet and tasty. We eat fruits for dessert. We eat fruit to enjoy and that was God’s plan and it acutally was a plan that Adam and Chava misunderstood.

Adam only conveyed the prohibition to eat from the Tree of Knowledge to Chava; however, he did not tell her about the mitzvah to enjoy the rest of the Garden. The Meshech Chochmah writes, “im amar ha’adam l’ishto ki Hashem yitbarach tziva le’echol min hagan” – “had Adam told her that it was a mitzvah to enjoy the rest of the garden,” “af shelo kivnah l’mitzvah” – even if she wouldn’t have had intent for the mitzvah, “mikol makom hayah kiyumah meigin she’lo le’echol mai’aitz ha’da’at” – nevertheless, her knowledge that appreciating the fruit was spiritually significant would have protected her from sin. Her mistake emanated from the fact that she thought that no type of enjoyment was beneficial or spiritual. She didn’t realize that God wants us to enjoy this world. God does not desire asceticism as an ideal. In fact, the Meshech Chochma cites the Yerushalmi in Masechet Kiddushin that “atid adam liten din v’cheshbon al kol she’ra’ah einav v’lo achal” – we will be held accountable for all that we have seen but didn’t taste. God created a world for us to enjoy. There is nothing inherently sinful about enjoying life. It is a spiritual value, but God tells us how to do that well, because we don’t always really know how to enjoy.

What’s the proper way to enjoy? God placed man in the garden and told him that it was his job “l’ovdah u’l’shomra” – to work in the garden and to guard it. Life in paradise was not a complete paradise of endless relaxation. Life in paradise was also work. It wasn’t “b’zei’at apecha tochal lachem” – the punishment for man after the sin that by the sweat of his brow he will eat bread. Meaning that work in Gan Eden may not have been very difficult work, but life in Gan Eden involves work. And here the Torah is teaching us something remarkable about enjoyment.

Best-selling author Arthur Brooks writes that there is a difference between enjoyment and pleasure. He writes, “Enjoyment and pleasure are terms often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Pleasure happens to you; enjoyment is something that you create through your own effort. Pleasure is the lightheadedness you get from a bit of grain alcohol; enjoyment is the satisfaction of a good wine, properly understood. Pleasure is addictive and animal; enjoyment is elective and human.”

Gan Eden is not a place when we are passive and simply receiving endless pleasure. Gan Eden requires our effort, our work. “L’ovdah.” And we work not to make us suffer. We work because there is no greater enjoyment than using our talents to create something for ourselves and enjoying the fruits of our own labor. That sense of accomplishment and success is the sense of Gan Eden.

And there’s another value to “l’ovdah,” to work, as well. Leo Tolstoy once said that, “Life is a place of service, and in that service one has to suffer a great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great deal of joy. But that joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.” Tilling the soil of Gan Eden for God is an act of service and living a life of service consciously is a source of much enjoyment. At the beginning of time, God gives man a counterintuitive lesson about creating true paradise and that is – “l’ovda.”

But there is an enjoyment that is even greater than this, and that is when we work, when we live a life of service, but also when we experience transcendence, when we begin to think beyond ourselves and our abilities, when we realize that we are connected to something far greater than ourselves. Feeling that we have risen above the everyday world and are connected to something vast and meaningful can be the source of something so authentic and real. And that’s what Gan Eden was. The Torah states, “kol Hashem Elokim mithalech ba’gan” – the voice of God was sensed going through the garden. There was a transcendent awareness of the divine in Gan Eden. Even as man is doing what he should be doing - working and creating and enjoying the fruits of his creations and living a life of service, his enjoyment is amplified with an awareness of the Divine.

And the way to achieve this transcendent feeling while you are creating on earth is God’s second directive to man – not just “l’ovda,” but also “l’shomra” – to guard it, or preserve it. What does that mean? How do we preserve or guard the garden? From whom or what is man protecting the garden? Says the midrash in Breishit Rabba (16:5):

לְעָבְדָהּ, (שמות כ, ט): שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד. וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ, (דברים ה, יב): שָׁמוֹר אֶת יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת לְקַדְּשׁוֹ

We observe “l’ovda” through working six days a week and we observe “l’shomrah” through observing Shabbat. If we want to transcend this world, we need to stop creating in this world once a week and only then, clear our mind and engage in a transcendental experience. “L’ovdah” – it’s all about my efforts. “L’shomra” – I am part of something grand, vast and beautiful.

The stories of Breishit aren’t just stories. The stories of Breishit aren’t just historical facts that we should memorize. The stories of Breishit tell us about ourselves and they tell us about how to function in this world. Specifically, the story of Gan Eden tells us how to enjoy ourselves in this world, through work, through living a life of service and through stopping every so often to reflect and sense “kol Hashem Elokim mit’halech ba’gan,” a feeling of God’s overwhelming presence, a feeling of transcendence. My bracha to you all is that you should enjoy in this world, and enjoy the right way, in a way that makes you feel good about yourself and your talents and your mission and in a way that connects you to something greater than yourself.