Eve Got It Right: Pain, Suffering, and Death.
What Else Could You Wish For?
By Michael Karlin
Co-President — Mythic Imagination Institute
Photo by Anne Parke Photography

What is the role of pain? I have been asking this question a lot lately as we are programming the Human Forum. We are gathering together hundreds of individuals who have sacrificed pleasure in favor of a meaningful life, in order to help themselves by helping others. What is the role of pain? Why is pain necessary? How does it fit into the narrative of our lives?

Perhaps it is the Human Forum that has gotten me thinking of this? Perhaps it is this season of descent? I guess this is a topic I find myself thinking about a lot. Staring at me from the opposite wall in my office is a three foot by four foot painting of an angel. She has a serene and beautiful countenance and her hands are extended forward towards me, as if offering the most sacred and precious gift. Floating out of her hands are three Hebrew letters: ayin, tzadik, and vet. These three letters make up the Hebrew root for the words that God uses to describe the horrible pain and suffering that will be inflicted on humankind as a punishment for Adam and Eve's eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So why is this beatific angel offering up this pain as such a gift?

This reminds me of a story. I am sure there are many thousand interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve, but the one I like best is the one told by Rabbi Yossi New at Mythic Journeys '04. According to one Midrash, the prohibition against eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil did not pertain to the Sabbath. In other words, as of Friday night, with the welcoming of the Sabbath, Adam and Eve would be permitted to eat of this tree for the duration of the Sabbath. Now a lot happened on the sixth day. First, God created all of the animals and creeping things. Then He created Adam. Then every beast of the field and bird of the sky was brought before Adam and he named them. Finally, a deep sleep was cast over Adam, and Eve was created. This is a lot to accomplish in one day, even for God! It must have been getting very late in the day. The Sabbath would begin at sunset, which by this time must have been at most a few hours away, and most likely only minutes. As soon as the sun set, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was free to be eaten, and before then, it was certain death. And yet Eve couldn't wait?! Adam, too. The two most holy, and perfect humans on Earth (okay, the only humans on Earth), and they couldn't wait a few hours before digging into the one forbidden fruit. Why is this? How could it be?

Yosef Yozel Hurwitz, a great 19th century Rabbi also known as the Alter of Navardok and the author of Madragat Ha-Adam (The Stature of Man), has one possible explanation for how this could have happened — Eve chose to eat the fruit from a place of great wisdom and devotion. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was frustrated that she was a perfect being, with no knowledge or inclination towards evil. She felt that she could not properly serve God, if she had no free will. If she did not have any evil inclination, then she would have no free will, for she would only be acting out of a pure desire to please the Divine. She would be nothing more than a robot. Only by being drawn towards the darkness and understanding it could she have the will to choose the light. In fact, I would go further and add that only by experiencing, integrating and sublimating evil could she ever fully and truly understand the Divine.

In order to achieve this experience of God, she was willing to unleash death, pain and suffering into the world, for she knew that these are the very crucibles within which we become fully human and fully divine.

At the very outset of the Bible, this lesson is given, and it is repeated over and over again throughout every story. Every character endures suffering in his or her quest for meaning. In fact, each trial ultimately brings forth the knowledge that is necessary to continue towards the next step in the journey. With each death and rebirth there is new hope, new momentum in our quest. Without pain, progress is difficult. Without suffering, wisdom is scarce, and without death, there is no enlightenment. I do not mean to be morbid or fatalistic. Certainly, there is much to be gained from basking in the light, but we must plumb the murky, dark depths in order to appreciate and radiate the light in a deeper way.

Thousands of years later, the truth of what has been encoded in this and other mythologies from around the world is cropping up in popular psychological research. The works of Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Claremont Graduate University, and Nathan Mascaro at Emory University, among many others are bearing out the wisdom that true happiness and psychological and medical well being come from possessing a sense of a deeper purpose in life, a "calling," one that is attached to a quest or mission that transcends our own life and in which we have individual efficacy. This is more important than possessing wealth, physical beauty, or even physical health in obtaining deep happiness. Many will actually recount some of the most difficult times in their lives, and recall how alive and engaged they felt, and how full of meaning.

Many say that Eve committed the original sin. I believe it was the original gift. She had the wisdom, insight and courage to bring forth a world where we could have a personal experience of meaning and express our own spark of the Divine.

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