Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/67

 The Garden of Bden the

man and woman,

first

free

and

trees.

at

Of

all

ease

in

a

49

placed by God, and living care-

beautiful,

garden

well-watered

of

the trees they might eat, except the one just

But one day they disobeyed in the center of the garden. and ate of the forbidden tree. Immediately they were driven from the garden, and were forced thereafter to gain their livelihood by tilling the hard and often unresponsive soil.

The

origin of this story

ground of garden of of water, that the

the

is

The back-

easily determined.

barren

unwatered,

earth

and

its

oasis-like

trees growing about the single, life-giving spring

is

unmistakable.

supreme good

is

Even more

indicative

is

the

theme

to live in a beautiful, well-watered

garden of trees and eat without toil of their fruit, and that the supreme evil is to be compelled to till the soil and, in sweat of brow, eat of its produce. To a people even only

advanced in civilization, tilling the soil for a livelihood does not seem an evil or a curse, but the normal state But of existence and the divinely appointed destiny of man. the nomad of the Arabian Desert looks out upon life through different eyes. His food supply is monotonous and scanty indeed, but this is more than compensated for by the perfect He works only freedom of the desert which he enjoys. when he pleases and as little as he pleases, and only at the, to him, noble occupation of caring for his sheep and camels. He is here today and gone where he will tomorrow. He is his own lord and master, and the absolute ecjual of every man. And he looks down with undisguised contempt upon the farmer, for all time bound to one spot, compelled to bend his back in servile toil, only too often to reap but thorns and thistles, and doomed to cringe and tremble before a despotic government, and humbly and unresistingly give of his hard-won gain for taxes at the unwarranted bidding of others. Clearly this story must have originated slightly

in

those remote, prehistoric days, long before the time

Moses, when our ancestors

still

of

roamed the great Arabian