Standing at our Trees of the Knowledge of TOV & RA

As I was reading Genesis 1, I noticed something that had not occurred to me before. Adam and Eve are standing in front of the tree of the knowledge of TOV (good) and RA (evil). They know that they are told not to eat from the tree. That was their boundary. When I was very young, I used to think that there was some type of magic in the fruit. I later understood that there was no magic. What they learned, was that they could disobey. From that moment on, every choice they made led to anger, violence and death.

It is interesting, that for each of us, we stand before that tree every day and make our choices knowing that even when we make a choice for TOV, there are consequences. Making the choice to create TOV or RA is an everyday affair.

This approach allows us to learn a valuable lesson from a very ancient story. We need a standard, a yardstick with which to measure our actions. We need to understand that our decisions have great impact on our lives and the lives of others. The message of the TOV Standard – acts that are pleasing to the eye, protects life, preserves life, makes life more functional, and/or increase the quality of life -- established in Genesis 1, repeats itself throughout our common Biblical heritage.

In Jewish tradition, we as a people and as individuals stand at Sinai and accept the instruction of Torah not only at the Festival of Shavuot, but every day. In the same way, all humans stand before the tree and decide whether they will choose TOV or RA, light or darkness, life or death every day. We have the instructions – let’s choose life.

Choose Life By Doing TOV!

Rabbi Leynor

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