Parshat Bereishit
October 5, 2002

Hashem created the universe in accordance with His Will. On the third day of Creation, Hashem commands the earth to produce vegetation:

And G-d said, “Let the earth be covered with vegetation, plants that produce seed, fruit-trees that produce fruit according to its kind (ETZ PRI OSEH PRI L’MINO), whose seed is in it, upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth produced vegetation, plants that produce seed according to its kind, and trees that produce fruit (V’ETZ OSEH PRI), whose seed is in it, according to its kind; and G-d saw that it was good. And it was evening and it was morning, the third day (Bereishit 1:11-13).

Why are the trees called “fruit-trees” (ETZ PRI) in the command, while they are called simply “trees” (ETZ) in the fulfillment of the command?

Rashi, quoting the Sages (Bereishit Rabbah 5:9; Yerushalmi Kilayim, Ch. 1), says that the earth did not do as it was commanded, with disastrous long-term effects:

Fruit-trees: That the flavor of the tree be like the taste of the fruit. But it did not do so. Rather, And the earth produced . . .trees that produce fruit, but the tree itself was not fruit. Therefore, when man was cursed for his sin, it too was punished for its sin and it was cursed.

The earth rebelled! It was commanded to produce fully edible trees, but instead it generated inedible trees with edible fruits.

Many commentaries take this midrash quite literally. Chizkuni (R. Chizkiya ben Manoach, mid 13th Century), for example, even says that the earth’s motives were noble: If the trees were edible, it reasoned, then many species of trees would become extinct when animals and man would eat them. Nevertheless, Hashem must be obeyed, and He would care for His creation.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook (1865-1935) understands this passage rather differently. In his Lights of Repentance, 6:7, he explains:
At the beginning of creation the taste of the tree was fit to be like the taste of its fruit as well: All methods which sustain some exalted, universal goal should be sensed with the spiritual sense with the same magnificence and pleasantness, in which the very goal is felt within it as we describe it.

However, the nature of the earth, the wandering of life and the weariness of spirituality when it is enclosed in the frame of physicality, brought about that only the taste of the fruit, of the final goal, the primary ideal, is felt in its pleasantness and its majesty. However, the trees which bear the fruit, with all their urgency for the production of the fruit, became thick and physical and lost their taste. This is the sin of the earth, because of which it was cursed when man also was cursed for his sin.

Rav Kook understands the “sin of the earth” as an allegory, symbolic of the condition of the created universe.

His son, R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook (1891-1982), in his comments on this portion, speaks of the entire process of creation as evolutionary, as a long but gradual descent from heaven to earth:

Above, in the heavens, there are no complications. They are only revealed below, in our reality. Man was created in the image of G-d, nevertheless there are complications in creation. Indeed, creation was made on this condition, that there will be complications, for the meanwhile. And we were created in order to repair them and to illuminate them  this is the sanctification of the Great Name.

On “the sin of the earth,” in explaining his father’s ideas, R. Tzvi Yehudah further says:

The development of the physical creation is not exactly according to the fundamental kernel of the word of Hashem. The taste of the tree is not like the taste of the fruit: the medium is not according to the goal. And from then until now, we pass through crises and complications.

Trees are means and fruits are ends. Lofty goals should be achieved through similarly lofty means. However, it is in the nature of the material realm that it cannot remain on the same high plane as the spiritual.

Whenever the spiritual enters the physical, whenever the theory is translated into practice, the results are always  must always be  less than could be hoped for.

This should not lead us to despair. There is no reason to be disappointed by our inability to achieve perfection. Rather, we should be comforted by the thought that perfection in the material world is, by definition, unattainable.

This is to say that our world is fragmented, but it is so by Hashem’s design.

We live in an imperfect world. Man’s flawed nature, his tendency to sin, is part of the world’s flaw, and he shares in it.

At the same time, we are uplifted by the promise that one day the world’s imperfections will be repaired. Rav Avraham Kook continues:

But the end of every flaw is repair. Therefore we are clearly assured that the days will come when creation will return to its original state, and the taste of the tree will be like the taste of the fruit, because the earth will repent from its sin, and the practical ways of life will not be the cause for blocking the pleasantness of the ideal light, which is maintained in its way by means of proper media, which sustain it and transform it from the potential to the actual.

This will be accomplished only through mankind, as the righteous of the world return in repentance from the essence of this sin, and transform it into joy (14:8).

When mankind fulfills its mission, then the world which Hashem created will attain its perfection.

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