"The Way of G-d"
Part 1: "The Fundamental Principles of Reality"
Ch. 3: "Mankind"
Paragraphs 8
As we indicated before, Adam and Eve's gross misjudgment caused a change in
the cosmic reality.
At first, evil only existed so that Adam and Eve could be allowed the
opportunity to opt for either true good or *apparent* good (i.e., evil). Had
they opted for true, unalloyed, G-dly good, they'd have achieved perfection
and the state of true humanness instantaneously (for they were actually only
potentially truly human). They chose apparent good instead, and did nearly
irreparable damage to themselves and to us as well as to the world, who all
depended on them to perfect it all right then and there.
(But let's not cluck our tongues at them and be surprised at how "asinine"
they could have been; for they are us. We, too, settle for something that
*seems* to be good at the moment, but which clearly proves not to be in the
end. And we accept that in ourselves, simply because we're "merely human" and
"imperfect", as we put it. They, too, were "merely human"-- in the manner in
which we depicted it-- and imperfect; and they too thought they were right.
It would thus do us well to step back from ourselves and cluck our tongues at
what *we're* about to do the next time we're faced with a moral choice. For
mistakes in that realm continue to affect us, those around us, and the world
at large, detrimentally.)
Nonetheless they erred, and as a consequence the original equibalance of good
and evil tipped toward the side of evil. And it became easier to err, and
harder to rectify.
For evil originally had a specific, limited mission (the above-mentioned need
to offer a choice, so as to allow for evil's own undoing), and it was easy to
conquer it. And as soon as it would have been conquered, mankind would have
achieved perfection (i.e., true humanness)
Evil, henceforth, took on a life of its own. It began to grow accustomed to
the power it had attained, and has since become entrenched in the world. What
would have seemed clearly wrong now seems "de rigeur", "normal", and "human
nature", despite its clear moral ambiguity *at best*.
It has therefore become much more difficult to choose to be good; much harder
to abandon our faults and earn perfection.
Whereas once all we needed to do was to conquer our own tendency for wrong
and go on from there, now we must work twice as hard, as a consequence of
Adam and Eve's cosmic error. We must not only fight our own battles, and
win-- but we must also fight Adam and Eve's. We must undo our own mistaken
bravado, return to the Adamic state, then fight the battle Adam and Eve did
not, and must win it when they couldn't.
Only then will we have achieved true humanness.
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