The Tree and the Idea

3:6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes (toava la-einaim), and the tree was desirable to make one wise (nehmad le-haskil); so she took of its fruit, and she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

What was so attractive in the tree?  Good for food is simple to understand, delight to the eyes, tantalizing - OK, people do get drawn to the shiny objects, only to forget about them later.  But what does it mean nehmad le-haskil, delight to the intellect, desirable to the mind - a tree is not a person that one can talk to, what's in a tree that makes it so desirable intellectually, what kinds of mysterious secrets did the tree hint at? 
I thinks it is the idea of unlimited power and freedom that eating from the tree symbolized, the idea expressed by the serpent earlier in 3:5 For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil. 
The idea that one can eat from the tree, or do whatever he wants, that is nehmad le-haskil.  A juicy piece of ham, an attractive object, is a toava la-einaim, but the idea that you can walk into any restaurant and order any food you want, the cultural idea,  the meme, that you can do whatever you want in your personal life, that is nehmad le-haskil. The idea is promoted from Ayn Rand to Shakira and Beyonce, the latter not incidentally featured on the cover of Time magazine in the list of the most influential people of the year. Man dreams of power and freedom.  3:1 Even if G-d indeed said so …

Rav Hirsch defines taavah as seeking something that is outside the area of physically or morally attainable, outside of the area of one's path. Someone who is מתאוה (roughly one who is driven by desire) is seeking to draw a line about oneself, to enlarge the boundaries of his province, to become the center of a larger circle.

But is the desire to enlarge one's boundaries all that bad?  What about Rabbi Akiva?  He was a laborer, for whom Torah learning was physically unattainable.  He had desire for it, and he put all his efforts to learn.  What about people learning Torah and Hebrew language in underground circles in Soviet Union when it was banned, risking life and freedom?  Should one really only limit himself to what is possible, attainable, allowed?  Is it moral for a person to jeopardize his family well-being and take financial risk for the sake of learning?  Even if G-d said that this is your place, do you have to comply?  A Jew is not particularly famous for sitting in a lotus pose, happy with his lot.  We have more Nobel Prize winners than any other nation in the world.  We also have the highest number of victims of irrational hatred of the nations.  It all comes from Chava, the mother of all life, and her desire to reach beyond the attainable.

The story is not so simple, and neither are we...

The desire for knowledge and temptation to sin comes from the same root, the same drive to expand oneself, to go beyond one's boundary. That understanding of commonality holds the key to resolution.  The same energy that drives one to sin can be channeled to fuel the quest for knowledge.  The unconscious impulse to expose oneself can be channeled to teach and influence for good.   But it takes a choice of free will to channel the energy into the right path.   In the Garden of Eden there were two trees, the tree of life that grew in the middle of the garden and was initially available to all, and the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The choice is always human, and it is not easy. 

I started the shiur on da'at with the story of king Solomon's dream, how he asked Hashem for wisdom, and G-d was so pleased with his request, that He granted him not only unsurpassed wisdom, but everything else under the sun - power, wealth, long life, everything that Solomon had not asked for.  How was Solomon different from Eve?  Both were driven by the same desire for knowledge, wisdom, expansion of established boundaries, but Solomon was rewarded for his desire while Eve was banished.  Same desire, same aspiration, different results.  The difference is that Solomon requested wisdom from G-d, and Eve followed the lead of an animal. 

Desire for wisdom is ingrained in human personality, it is the desire for growth, the aspiration to go beyond, to reach the sky.  What matters are the means of achievement, the moral choice. 

King Solomon was a complex figure. It takes years of learning and life experience to start understanding his personality.  At the end all his wisdom did not serve him well, however  the sages concur that all his writings are holy, as through them is channeled the wisdom from Above.