Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/74

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Book of Genesis

not understand it, they were privileged to live with God in His garden of delight, and they were happy. With sin came shame and the impulse to hide, and sorrow and punishment. They were driven from the beautiful garden forever, and forced to till the soil and gain their livelihood by bitter toil. Yet even in this God's love and mercy were manifest. For only by work, true, useful work, which makes the world better and happier, can we gain true happiness and feel that we are fulfilling the purpose for which God has placed us here on earth. But always the consequences of disobedience and sin are shame, unhappiness, and punishment. No longer can we look our loved ones in the face. We hang our heads and seek to hide from their accusing glance. Friends and companions and the world at large put faith in us no more, for they can not tell what we may do and wherein we may disobey next. And so we are driven from the beautiful garden of happiness and association with trusting loved ones and friends, and we hide ourselves, solitary and alone, from all

the world.

But even

this

is

ishment, our story

not the end of disobedience and tells.

but from God's all-seeing vision, never.

"Man, where

its

From men we may perhaps Soon

He

punhide,

will call

art thou?", and we, too, will come, ashamed, from our dark hiding-place, and stand before our Maker for judgment. This, our religion teaches, we can not escape, for in the end we must all be judged. And the judgment, Judaism holds, is sure and absolutely just, whether for punishment, as in the story, or for reward. Yet God's love rules supreme, and He has held out to man the beautiful, inspiring hope of repentance and eventual pardon. The rabbis told that when God made man, He took dust from each of the four corners of the earth, in order that no one spot might boast, "Man was made from me alone", but that man might be, as it were, the child of the entire earth, and possess the qualities of the whole

unto

us, too,

trembling and