The Fall of Man

"And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now therefore lest perhaps he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth."

• Genesis 3:22-23, Hebrew Bible

Man had to be cast out of the garden, because the came to know “good and evil” - meaning he came to do evil. Therefore he had to be prevented from accessing the Tree of Life, because that power of Eternal Life and Eternal Creation can only be for those who are worthy of it. By being cast out of the Garden, Man was assured that his separation could never last.

“And the Lord God 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 to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he 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. GENESIS 3:22–24 (NIV)

• "And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'" — Genesis 2:16-17
• "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves." — Genesis 3:7
• "He said, 'I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.'" — Genesis 3:10
• "And to Adam he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, "You shall not eat of it," cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.'" — Genesis 3:17-19

• "When Adam on the day of his creation saw the sun sinking in the sky before him, he said, 'Woe is me! Because I acted offensively, the world is darkening for me and is about to return to darkness and desolation—indeed, this is the death that Heaven has decreed for me.' So he sat down to fast and to weep throughout the night, while Eve wept beside him. But when the dawn began slowly rising like a column, he said, 'Such is the way of nature,' and then proceeded to offer up a bullock." — Midrash Rabbah, Genesis 8:14 (Reflecting Adam's initial fear and eventual acceptance of natural cycles)

• "His body reached from earth to heaven [or from one end of the world to the other] before sin caused him to sink. He was of extreme beauty and sun-like brightness. His skin was a bright garment, shining like his nails; when he sinned this brightness vanished, and he appeared naked."
• Rabbinic literature,

Eating of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

God condemns Adam to labour on the earth for his food and to return to it on his death.

Eve's fault in the Fall

The serpent approached Eve rather than Adam because Adam had heard the word of God with his own ears, whereas Eve had only his report

Eve tasted the fruit and knew at once that she was doomed to death, and said to herself that it was better she trick Adam into eating so that he too would die, and not take another woman in her place.

When Adam blamed Eve after eating the forbidden fruit, God rebuked him that Adam as a man should not have obeyed his wife, for he is the head, not her.

The feminine is the force that will trap you in Materiality. It is the lure of the flesh, of sex, of lust...

This is not misogynist, it reflects deeper truths about the nature of the masculine and the feminine….

Exile from The Garden of Eden

The Fall

the sin of Adam and Eve

• they separated the Tree of knowledge (10 sefirot within Malkuth, representing Divine immanence), from the Tree of life within it (10 sefirot within Tiferet, representing Divine transcendence).
• This introduced the false perception of duality into lower creation, an external Tree of Death nurtured from holiness, and an Adam Belial of impurity.

Original Sin Fall of Man Reversing the Fall

“humanity inherited sin and guilt from Adam and Eve's sin” - we carry that sin and guilt, that trauma of turning away from God/Truth deep in our being and bones From the falling of our frequency from the angelic state to animalistic ego.

The act of Disobedience

It is our disobedience that doomed us, but also it shows our individuality, our willingness to explore the depths of creation. Lucifer’s rebellion

“After the fall of man, "lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever", cherubim and a flaming sword are placed at the east end of the Garden to guard the way to the tree of life.”

“Uniquely, the Gnostic religion held that the tree was entirely positive or even sacred. Per this saga, it was the archons who told Adam and Eve not to eat from its fruit, before lying to them by claiming they would die after tasting it. Later in the story, an instructor is sent from the Pleroma by the aeons to save humanity and reveal gnosis. This savior does so by telling Adam and Eve that eating the fruit is the way into salvation. Examples of the narrative can be found within the Gnostic manuscripts On the Origin of the World and the Secret Book of John.”

The Serpent

The serpent is the symbol of the tempter?

of the evil forces? The energies of the earth? The dormant kundalini power?

“In Jewish tradition, the Tree of Knowledge and the eating of its fruit represents the beginning of the mixture of good and evil together. Before that time, the two were separate, and evil had only a nebulous existence in potential. While free choice did exist before eating the fruit, evil existed as an entity separate from the human psyche, and it was not in human nature to desire it. Eating and internalizing the forbidden fruit changed this, and thus was born the yetzer hara, the evil inclination.”

“According to one source, Eve also fed the fruit to the animals, leading to their mortality as well.”

“According to the Greek Apocalypse of Moses, the tree of life is also called the Tree of Mercy. Adam believed the oil of the tree of Life would relieve him of his ailments and sent Seth and Eve to the doors of the Garden to beg for some oil of the tree of Life.”

In Lurianic Kabbalah, evil originates from a primordial shattering of the sephirot of God's Persona before creation of the stable spiritual worlds, mystically represented by the 8 Kings of Edom (the derivative of Gevurah) "who died" before any king reigned in Israel from Genesis 36. In the divine view from above within Kabbalah, emphasised in Hasidic Panentheism, the appearance of duality and pluralism below dissolves into the absolute Monism of God, psychologising evil.76 Though impure below, what appears as evil derives from a divine blessing too high to be contained openly.77 The mystical task of the righteous in the Zohar is to reveal this concealed Divine Oneness and absolute good, to "convert bitterness into sweetness, darkness into light".

Paradise Lost

"Thus fenced, and as they thought, their shame in part / Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind, / They sat them down to weep, nor only tears / Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within / Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate, / Mistrust, suspicion, discord, and shook sore / Their inward state of mind, calm region once / And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent."

• John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX, lines 1120-1126

Paradise Lost is an opera in two acts with music by Krzysztof Penderecki and an English libretto by Christopher Fry. The opera is based on the 1667 epic poem of the same name by Milton. Penderecki himself characterized the work as a Sacra Rappresentazione (sacred representation) rather than an opera.

Wikipedia Paradise Lost (Penderecki)

Dust to Dust

you return to the ground since from it you were taken For dust you are and to dust you will return