Children’s Stories

Notice how in children’s stories the animals, birds, trees, mountains, clouds, sun and moon are often animated. They’re almost human-like. Could this be emerging from a residual memory in our souls of what life was like in the Garden of Eden? I suspect so.

See, the Garden of Eden was a very human friendly place. With the exception of the snake, everything in the Garden conversed pleasantly with Adam and Eve, were well intentioned and showed them a smiling face. So, what changed?

Kabbalah teaches that as a precursor stage to creation there was an event called, “the shattering of the vessels”. God had manifested ten sefirot, ten modes of expression. They were His tools to create the spiritual and physical worlds. Each of these ten sefirot consisted of an inner soul and outer body, called a light and a vessel (i.e. a receptacle for the light). The lights entered the vessels to animate them with life. However, since the vessels were too weakly constructed to handle the light, they shattered into shards. As each shard fell, as if grasping at a life preserver, it grabbed onto a spark of the light, hugging a droplet of life. This way it would not fade out of existence.

Fallen from their original perch, these sparks and shards descended down the levels of reality to become the building blocks of all lower realms - spiritual and physical. However, as the saying goes, “too much baby was thrown out with the bathwater”. When the vessels shattered not only had material designed to form the lower realms fallen, but also sparks and shards which were really meant to remain above, as part of the original ten sefirot, fell along with them. In their fallen state, these particular sparks and shards sowed chaos in the lower realms; not allowing these realms to properly organize, coalesce and form into worlds. 

During the six days of creation, most of these shards and sparks, belonging to the ten sefirot above, were elevated back to their origin. Besides being restored, these ten sefirot were further enhanced. A new inflow of light, from even higher up, descended into the ten sefirot. This fresh flow of light matured them into fuller structures called “partzufim” - literally “faces”. In their matured state they were able to be used by God to channel lights and organize the lower realms into worlds teeming with inhabitants, both spiritual and physical. By the time Adam and Eve were created, only a tiny drop of this elevation remained unfinished. This way God left a tiny corner of creation for Adam and Eve to finish off. He gave them something to do. If done successfully, they would instantly enter into an advanced stage of the messianic era.

However, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit this paradise collapsed. Much of the work to elevate the sparks during the process of creation was undone. What remained of the world was a diminished, physicalized, shadow of its former self. As if in disgust and distrust, the sparks moved further away from Adam and Eve. As if hurt, they no longer readily presented themselves in human friendly form. Thus, a prior necessary stage of elevating the sparks had to be introduced. Humans had to work at first returning the sparks to their human friendly state in order to re-ripen them for the elevation which Adam and Eve were originally supposed to accomplish.

This is why we go to work. During work, we participate in transforming the materials of the planet back into human friendly forms. From that state, a “Mitzvah” can be performed with these items and their sparks can be elevated back to the higher sefirot; as was done to create the world in the original state, which Adam and Eve inhabited. Eventually, when enough of these elevations occur we will enter the messianic era.

As we move forward in time, it’s self-evident that we have become ever more adept at transforming the materials of our planet into improved versions of the human friendly form. In fact, if we consider what we accomplished in the past 70 years with artificial intelligence, we’ve managed to bring almost human-like thinking and behavior out of inorganic materials. Amazing! 

However, the basic principle of this effort is nothing new. Our times are just experiencing a more advanced reiteration of a pattern which has been around ever since the exile from Eden. For thousands of years, we’ve bred select animals and plants, making them ever more human friendly - catering specifically to our needs. Building homes, machinery and other products, to one extent or another, are also examples of age-old transformations of raw nature into human friendly form. The same can be said for food preparation. Ever since Eden we have been engaged in a never ending project of little by little transforming the elements around us into human friendly forms.

There’s another pathway, a higher one, which can increase the human friendliness of the elements which comprise our world. It’s living a life of sincere holiness. There are many stories in the Bible, Midrash, Talmud and about the saintly of later generations which point to how the elements of the world happily cooperated with human beings who were very sincere in their relationship with God. Though this path requires a lot of faith, it’s less abrasive to the environment and is ultimately, more respectful to God. Still, we see that in certain cases, such as circumcision and agricultural work, God Himself asks humans to make changes to nature. Accordingly, the best approach is likely a blended one.

A totally human friendly world, where everything smiles at us and communicates pleasantly with us, seems like quite a while off. However, we’re closer than we’ve ever been since Eden. In the meanwhile, children's stories unconsciously attempt to bring us full circle, by introducing us to this goal at the very formative stages of our education.

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(This mini-essay includes material culled from “Etz Chaim”, “Beit Lechem Yehuda”, “Da’at TeVunot” and “Rebbe Nachman on Why We Work - Earning a Living, Earning a Life” - especially, chapter eight.)