The day was cool and the air comfortable despite the intense sunlight filtering through the gorgeous green leaves of the orchards. Adam and his beautiful wife were strolling among the vibrant plants toward the tree of life (the ezhachayim) in the middle of the garden, praising the goodness of their Creator. Their eyes were relishing on the magnificent splendor of the apples, the charm of the juicy pears, the delight of the sweet oranges, and they were in awe.
       As they contemplated the fruits from the ezhachayim, however, Adam’s wife’s attention turned to the tree next to it – the very one which Yahweh had commanded the man not to eat from. Her husband had told her about it, but her mind began to wonder about that tree. “If it must be off limits, why was it there? And so close to us?” she thought. Just then, a snake was high-walking around the tree and caught her attention. She had tried to get close to it before, but it had galloped away. However, this time, it seemed to stare at her, as if it wanted to converse. Immediately, a silent conversation began to take place between the animal and her, as their souls met.
       “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” the snake asked. “Don’t be ridiculous,” thought the woman. “How would we live if we do not eat? Of course, we have permission to eat fruit from any tree in the Garden,” the woman continued. “However, God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” At least, that is what my husband told me God said.
       “Ah!” the serpent said. “So, God told you not to touch that fruit or you will die, hum?” The serpent smiled at the idea. It continued the exchange trying to persuade the woman that the fruit was like any other one in the Garden and was harmless. Better yet, it communicated to the woman that this was a special fruit designed to provide knowledge, and God was holding out on them. Finally, it convinced the woman to touch the fruit to see if she would really die.
       Trembling with excitement and anticipation, the woman reached out and plucked one fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She was in contemplation before it. “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Adam’s wife thought for a moment, still contemplating the idea of eating the forbidden fruit. It looked as good as any of the apples, pears, or oranges they tasted earlier. After all, it was fruit as edible as any other in the garden. Besides, this is the one fruit that provided knowledge. No other fruit did that. Perhaps, the serpent was right: God knows something they didn’t, and he is holding out on them. Perhaps if she and her husband ate from it, they may have as much knowledge as God and be His equal. Wow! What an upgrade!
       Fighting the last bit of doubt that hindered her, she bravely took a bite. At that very moment, her husband turned and saw her do it. He gently rebuked her. However, she looked at him straight in the eyes, and she asked him to check her out. Holding the fruit like a trophy, she looked his way, posed like a model, turned around, and then curtsied. He was fascinated that she was still standing. Why was she not dead?
       “The serpent was right!” she exclaimed. “I am not dead, husband. And neither will you be if you try.” “No,” the man replied. “Yahweh told us that when we eat of it, we will die.” “Exactly,” continued the woman, “I’m still alive. Don’t you see? The serpent was right. We will not die. We will be like Gods. You know how much we can do? We can create our own garden. We can make other creatures like you and me, and we can make gardens for them too. We can invite God to the new place that we will make ourselves.”
       “I don’t think it’s a good idea, wife of Adam.”
       “It is a marvelous idea, husband. You will see once you try it.”
       “I don’t want to disobey God.”
       “You’re right. Did He not say that we are one flesh? Would not this mean that we should eat the same things… together?”
       “I don’t think it means that.”
       “So, you are really going to let me get all that knowledge all by myself? Please, dear husband, if you really love me, get some of this fruit I have in my hand right now.”
       “I really shouldn’t do this…”
       Before he could protest further, she gently touched his lips with a piece of the fruit. It was a delight indeed. He contemplated the consequences for an instant and then began to chew. The taste was heavenly, but just as he was savoring the fruit, immediately, something began to happen. He felt his stomach tied into a knot. Something was happening that made him feel uncomfortable, but he could not describe what it was. A weird feeling he had never he had never experienced before – the feeling that something was wrong. He was experiencing wrong for the first time ever, and it was not a good feeling. Until now, all he knew was good and right. So, this was what wrong felt like. He looked at her. She looked at him. She felt it too. They stared into each other’s eyes, mouth wide opened, and suddenly dread filled their souls.
       Their eyes traveled to their midsection, and they realized another new thing: they were naked. Naked? What was that? How have they not noticed this before? They were overwhelmed with shame and fear. Without wasting a minute, they feverishly began plucking leaves from the forbidden tree to cover their nakedness, but to no avail. The leaves could hardly stay in place. As the time of their regular meeting with God approached, their terror became almost palpable. They were in full panic mode as they ran and hid themselves among the thick bushes of the garden.
       Suddenly, they heard shuffled steps gradually approaching their place of hiding. Their horror escalated to an unbearable level. How the same presence that comforted them a moment ago was now so frightening to them was a mystery they could not unravel. Everything was altering at an incredibly fast pace before their eyes. The sky grew darker, and thorns were instantaneously growing through the stems of the gorgeous-looking roses nearby. Adam’s mouth suddenly felt like a bitter taste had invaded his tongue, and his heart felt like it was about to come out of his throat as he heard the call.
       “Adam, where are you?”
       He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so, I hid.”
       “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat?”
       “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
       Yahweh Elohim turned to the woman and said to her: “What is this you have done?”
       The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
       Then Yahweh Elohim turned to the serpent and said, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
       Immediately, the four legs of the serpent began to retract and disappeared in its belly and chest. With no legs to stand on, it fell flat on its belly, and it painfully began to crawl away, but not before it heard the rest of its curse from Yahweh Elohim.
       “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
       As the serpent slithered away, Yahweh Elohim turned his face back to the woman and said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
       Going back to Adam, Yahweh Elohim said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
       As the Lord addressed Adam, the ground began to slightly shake under them. New strange-looking plants were emerging from it. They were full of menacing pointed stems. Adam tried to reach to grab one, but he was pricked, and the red drop of blood showed a deep contrast with the green leaf it fell on before reaching the ground. Cold sweat dropped from the man’s forehead and diluted the blood on the leaf, as the mixture of blood and sweat trickled to the ground.
       The Lord went on, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
       Adam was dumbfounded. He was trying to understand what had just happened. One moment he was happy like the birds around them, and the next moment, he was being reprimanded for something he did not initiate. Bewildered and confused, he did not realize that the temporary loin coverings they had made of fig leaves were falling apart, and they remembered their shame.
       The Lord God quickly killed a couple of lambs and used their skins to make garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them. And Yahweh Elohim said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.”
       So, the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden. From now on, he will have to work the ground from which he had been taken.
       Adam took his wife with him and left the paradisiac area of the Garden of Eden. He bowed his head in shame as he went through the gate. Many thoughts went through his mind. What was he going to eat? How long will the food last before he can produce his own? How was he going to live? How long would those garments God made him last? Why did he listen to his wife? Why did he not stand his ground when his wife compelled him to eat against his Lord’s will? Why did God ever give him that woman to be with him? Regardless, at this point in his life, she was all that he had left.
       Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
Out of food and out of options, Adam began to furiously till the ground, once outside of the gate. And then began the terrible state of misery for him and Eve, for, from this time on, food would be rationed and scarce, work would be brutal, and life would be filled with uncertainties and mysteries.
       After Yahweh Elohim drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. In this way, access to the tree of life was completely cut off for the first man and woman, leaving them to wonder how much longer they will exist before their light is extinguished forever.
       And thus, by the disobedience of one man, death and evil were ushered in the earth, never to cease until the Creator sends his Son on earth to fulfill his promise to the serpent – the devil. God had said: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Jesus, the Son of God, would be the offspring of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.