Choosing Pain

We chose pain. Can you imagine that? Choosing pain? Who would do such a thing? Yet, that is precisely what happened. We chose it.

If there is a single moral to the tale of Creation it is that Adam HaRishon - primordial man- elected to take the path of pain instead of spending his days in utter comfort. The Garden was perfect. There were no needs or wants. There was work to be done and the possibility of failure did not exist. There could be no failure. Likewise there was nothing to succeed at. All Adam HaRishon had to do was breathe.

In taking the forbidden fruit shame ensconced itself in the consciousness of the two beings. First naked and unabashed 1 Adam and Havvah felt their vulnerability begin to grow into an unrelenting self-conscious throb. Once comfortable in their own skin the couple now felt no comfort, only a constant gnawing of self-doubt and recrimination. Instead of roaming about the Garden, Adam and Havvah now crouched low in the bushes. Just moments before the universe stretched before them. In one moment he world had closed in on them. The skies felt like they were crushing down upon them.

Self-loathing and fear gripped Adam and Havvah. Dark suspicions colored the previously pristine Garden. They accused one another, contemptuously.

He said, "The woman that You gave me — she gave the fruit…" "The woman said, The serpent…"

Perfection was blemished. Shunned from Eden, Adam and Havvah now had to deal with previously unimagined pains that would assault their physical being and relentlessly pursue their consciousness. They crouched lower into the foliage, terrified of the growing inner darkness.

Why did they choose the path of pain?

On Hanukka we celebrate in many ways. Among the more opaque observances is the tradition of spinning the dreidle. A commentator, Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov, said that the difference between Hanukka and Purim is best demonstrated by the dreidle and the gragger.

The dreidle is spun by taking hold of the top and twisting your wrist. The gragger is sounded by taking hold of the bottom and yanking it around. One is gripped from below; the other above. That reminds us of the difference between the two holidays. While Purim celebrates the ability of Esther to find her self and God and save the Jews, below; Hanukka recalls the intervention of God in coming to the aid of the Hasmonean warriors, above, with the miracle of the oil.

Redemption has different origins in the two holidays. There are times when we depend upon God and other times when we must depend upon ourselves. Yet, the connection between Purim and Hanukka is that redemption only comes about through struggle, pain. Both tales are pock-marked with rivalry, desperation and fear.

It would be nice if life was different; if our lives were not so riddled with wounds…and it was for a brief flicker of time in our past. The Garden of Eden. We return to our first question: why did they do it? Why did the sole inhabitants of Paradise forfeit perfection? Why could they not turn their backs from the Tree of Knowledge and forever walk in the Divine Radiance?

The question of pain is paramount in the parasha of the week as the family of Jacob descends into the fist of Egypt that would last for hundreds of years. At first it is a move that benefits everybody. Prosperity swiftly turns to anguish and despair as th children of Jacob become slaves to their present-day neighbors. Why such pain? Why must generation after generation endure agony?

In connection with the week’s Torah reading, a tale offers the following insight:
A farmer needed to yoke his cow. The cow had no desire to have the wooden plank placed around its neck and then tightened on her shoulders. She balked. Turning her neck this way and that the farmer could not yoke the animal. So what did the farmer do?
The farmer went to his shed and led her calf out in front of the mother. Pathetically bleating, the calf made the mother-cow lurch protectively forward. Because of her child, the cow allowed herself to become yoked.

It was foretold that Jacob would migrate to Egypt long ago. 2 The descent into Egypt and the subsequent affliction was part of a pact that God made with Father Abraham. There were countless ways to facilitate the yet-to-be-born descendent of Abraham leaving Canaan for Egypt but God decided to bring the calf first to induce its mother. The Holy One declared: He is My firstborn. Shall I then bring him down to Egypt in disgrace? I will draw his son before him, and so he will follow. Joseph was the lynchpin – the calf -- that forced Jacob to move. Jacob was compelled to go down to Egypt.

What does this Midrash mean? Does God want us to suffer? He ordained the slavery? It was part of God’s plan that Abraham’s descendents be slaves? Why?

It would seem that man and God are in collusion: they both believe that suffering is a necessary part of the human condition.

Rashi commented on the remarkable episode when Moses viewed the blazing bush on the mountaintop. 3 "Just as you see this bush burning while remaining intact so you carry My mission and will not be destroyed."

God did not promise that the process would be easy. There would be pain; the kind that invariably accompanies flame. God didn't say there would be no suffering. God only promised that we would not be alone and that we would survive.

In an early Talmudic passage there is the powerful statement, 4 A voice from heaven courses through the world three times each day that weeps for the pain and loss of God’s people.
If God weeps for our loss why then do we suffer?

The answer lies in the Garden of Eden. In the great experiment of human contentment, a dismal failure, a lesson was learned: humanity is happiest when learning and growing from its own mistakes. That is why Adam and Havvah chose the path of pain. It not only gave them a choice but the experience of hurt and failure allowed them to grow.

Perhaps that is also why God placed us in Egypt because that too, was part of our collective growth. Could it be that the act of suffering leads us to new spiritual ground?
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: The Holy One, Blessed is He, gave three good gifts to the Jewish people, and all are acquired through suffering: Torah, the Land of Israel, and the World to Come. 5

Elsewhere, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught: Come and see how beloved is Israel to the Holy One, the Well of all blessing. When Israel went into exile, the Shechina went along into exile. They went to exile to Egypt, the Shechina went with them….They went to Babylon in exile and the Shechina went with them, as it is written, because of you I was sent to Babylon (Isaiah 43:14). When they will eventually be redeemed, the Shechina will be redeemed along with them, as it is written, Then the Lord your God will bring back your captivity and have mercy upon you (Deut. 30:3). God Himself returns along with Israel from its exiles. 6

Once life was perfect and that was the problem. Now we live a life that is rife with problems and it is perfect.



1 Genesis 2:25
2 Genesis15:13
3 Exodus 3:12
4 Berachot 3a
5 Berachot 5a
6 Megilah, 29a