Breishis 5787 - Bechira Only After Sinning

precious. We have the story of andarish h it was the ate from the sadas to and he was banished from and so on. It seems as if the eating theas is really what gave a person. That's what it seems like. And the obvious question is that how could it be two things first of all if he sinned if the fact that he sinned implies that he has sahara that it's possible and secondly the greatest gift of man is called that is man it's very very hard to say that that he got only once he did na that question the Rambam someone poses to Rambam in Moravim and the Rambam um speaks about it. What's interesting is that at first the Rambam berates the person for having asked a question that needs a lot of deep thought and somehow asked it off-handedly and then the Roman proceeds to answer it in a way way shows that it's a very very good question. Now it's not really a contradiction. The idea is that it's something which is the question itself is good but it has to be asked with a lot of gravitas and thoughtfulness and so on. That's sort of the uh you know the understanding of the Ramba but I'd like to um so I'd like to explain what the Rama says. himself makes a very deep point and he says as follows. The word the ver means that we became aware we became um we became uh connected to the idea of good and bad. There was there was good and bad in the world. And let's take an example. Um, an animal can connect to various things of sight and sound and smell. But good and bad is an idea that an animal absolutely has no connection to. That's the reality. Now, man does have a connection. Man very very strongly understands, feels, and and and lives good and bad. That's what makes man man. That's obvious. But the Rom says there are two um two levels at which we can sense good and bad. Let's let's understand this. We're not talking about um information that this is good or this is bad. We're talking about an [clears throat] inner sense. For instance, let's take an idea concept completely not relevant to this but just to give us an idea and that is symmetry. Now symmetry we could possibly find some scientific way to describe it maybe not but more than anything else there's an intuition. We look at something we say it's symmetrical or it's asymmetrical it doesn't quite uh something doesn't match up over here. So the idea for symmetrical is a certain idea which it's a concept and it's a concept that the mind has to grasp and that's what it's about. Now there are dramam says there are two ways at which I can grasp something. One is as an absolute fact and reality. For instance, the idea that two things cannot simultaneously exist in the same place is very aimatic intuitive to us. It's aimatic intuitive to us in a way that this has to be and there is no other possibility. When a person sees the edge of a cliff in front of him, the the the idea that one step more means instant death. Those those are ideas that are a um they're reality to us in in the sharpest way possible. There's another set of ideas and ideals and that is social convention. A person ought to acknowledge kindness of someone. A person ought to think of other people. a person um should participate in whatever everyone else is doing. All sorts of things like that. We we tend to take these things almost universally as being true. But it's true not as a fact and and that impossible to be different but true as this is what's universally subscribed to. So we also relate to the fact that people need to be kind to each other as a truth. But it's not quite like the same truth of of what the edge of a cliff means. One is a fact and one is um a a convention or certain social reality but not a fact and say the first one is now to and ra the recognition of good and bad harish had it in him. It was hardwired in the way that uh a fact would be that two things can't exist in the same place. It it just that is as real as could possibly be. That's the the way in which it's sorry the way in which drama describes it it was em that is the firmst sense of good and bad that a person can have and that was that his doing that required going against what was perceived as reality. Once he broke that line, now good and bad became a social convention. One ought to do this, one ought not to do this. The brain cataloges it in a very different category than the first type. So we have realities and that is called M is for sheer. That's the way he describes it. And then we're called and then there are let's call them conventions which he calls me um attractive positive um versus despicable negative. Those are so before the was and a very mad ais him um almost impossibilities. This is wrong in the way that saying that something will fall if if it's if it's left hanging midair because it that's reality. That's how powerful our sense of of tora was. When we broke that line and we saw it could be done despite the fact that there's a lot of um there was a terrible consequence that became now an idea of um appropriate inappropriate but it lost its powerful standing of a mitz. So Marishan had both times but his perception of to ra were absolute emis all the way. When we speak about a kesh who is emis and his commandments are emis it means that his commandments are as real as his as the world we see around us and even more. So if nobody would think if if if somebody shows you a little magic trick that something's defying gravity, we'll scratch our head and we'll and we'll do whatever we can to figure out how he's wrong, that he's playing a a game with us, he's fooling us because we know it as a fact. Whereas um if somebody will argue to us and tell us that you know charity is not really obligatory but it's if you if you like it we could see ourselves being swayed by it because we understand chatting doing good as being appropriate and good but we don't understand it in terms of a mitas the way we understand other things. So duram here is explaining to us the tremendous shift that happened within when he ateas until of course had a power and he had a very powerful sense of right and wrong but that sense of right and wrong was with a certain sense of being absolute heating from required the type of of um of of energy as a person runs into into into a street with cards running back and forth to retrieve something. The person is taking a risk and he knows it and he just very very tempted by whatever is that he's grabbing. After the became a possibility, it's no longer the the the what reality is. It's something that's appropriate as opposed to being inappropriate. It's better. It's good. That's a much much weaker sense of the truth of what good and bad is. If good and bad has to do with what Hashem wants, then things that are not good are simply not existent and they made it look like they exist. They don't. And the things that are good really exist once Adam his entire sense of right and wrong descended a big rung. From now on it was appropriate, inappropriate, not um existent and non-existent is the existent ones and all of his words and should go to the very heart of what it means to exist. Chalking them off as sort of uh as a being appropriate inappropriate is a tremendous step down for mankind. That's what the Rama explains happened to our sense of right and wrong went down really