8. In fact, the whole Paradise story could never be made the basis for a dogma. The historicity of the serpent is denied by Saadia;[684] the rabbis transfer Paradise with the tree of life to heaven as a reward for the future;[685] and both Nahmanides the mystic and Maimonides the philosopher give it an allegorical meaning.[686] On the other hand, the Haggadic teachers perceived the simple truth that a life of indolence in Paradise would incapacitate man for his cultural task, and that the toils and struggles inflicted on man as a curse are in reality a blessing. Therefore they laid special stress on the Biblical statement: “He put man into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”[687] The following parable is especially suggestive: “When Adam heard the stern sentence passed: ‘Thou shalt eat the herb of the field,’ he burst into tears, and said: ‘Am I and my ass to eat out of the same manger?’ Then came another sentence from God to reassure him, ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,’ and forthwith he became aware that man shall attain a higher dignity by dint of labor.”[688] Indeed, labor transforms the wilderness into a garden and the earth into a habitation worthy of the son of God. The “book of the generations of [pg 225] man” which begins with Adam is accordingly not the history of man's descent, but of his continuous ascent, of ever higher achievements and aspirations; it is not a record of the fall of man, but of his rise from age to age. According to the Midrash[689] God opened before Adam the book with the deeds and names of the leading spirits of all the coming generations, showing him the latent powers of the human intellect and soul. The phrase, “the fall of man,” can mean, in fact, only the inner experience of the individual, who does fall from his original idea of purity and divine nobility into transgression and sin. It cannot refer to mankind as a whole, for the human race has never experienced a fall, nor is it affected by original or hereditary sin.
Chapter XXXVI. God's Spirit in Man
1. Man is placed in an animal world of dull feelings, of blind and crude cravings. Yet his clear understanding, his self-conscious will and his aspirations forward and upward lead him into a higher world where he obtains insight into the order and unity of all things. By the spirit of God he is able to understand material things and grasp them in their relations; thus he can apply all his knowledge and creative imagination to construct a world of ideals. But this world, in all its truth, beauty and goodness, is still limited and finite, a feeble shadow of the infinite world of God. As the Bible says: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inward parts.”[690] “It is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty, that giveth them understanding.”[691]
2. According to the Biblical conception, the spirit of God endows men with all their differing capacities; it gives to one man wisdom by which he penetrates into the causes of existence and orders facts into a scientific system; to another the seeing eye by which he captures the secret of beauty and creates works of art; and to a third the genius to perceive the ways of God, the laws of virtue, that he may become a teacher of ethical truth. In other words, the spirit of God is “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”[692] It works upon the scientific interest of the investigator, [pg 227] the imagination of the artist and poet, the ethical and social sense of the prophet, teacher, statesman, and lawgiver. Thus their high and holy vision of the divine is brought home to the people and implanted within them under the inspiration of God. In commenting upon the Biblical verse, “Wisdom and might are His ... He giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding,”[693] the sages wisely remark, “God carefully selects those who possess wisdom for His gift of wisdom.” Even as a musical instrument must be attuned for the finer notes that it may have a clear, resonant tone, so the human soul must be made especially susceptible to the gifts of the spirit in order to be capable of unfolding them. Thus the Talmud records an interesting dialogue on this very passage between a Roman matron familiar with the Scripture, and Rabbi Jose ben Halafta. She asked sarcastically, “Would it not have been more generous of your God to have given wisdom to those that are unwise than to those that already possess it?” Thereupon the Jewish master replied, “If you were to lend a precious ornament, would you not lend it to one who was able to make use of it? So God gives the treasure of wisdom to the wise, who know how to appreciate and develop it, not to the unwise, who do not know its value.”[694]
3. Thus the diverse gifts of the divine spirit are distributed differently among the various classes and tribes of men, according to their capacity and the corresponding task which is assigned them by Providence. The divine spark is set aglow in each human soul, sometimes feebly, sometimes brightly, but it blazes high only in the privileged personality or group. The mutual relationship between God and man is recognized by the Synagogue in the Eighteen Benedictions, where the [pg 228] one directly following the three praises of God is devoted to wisdom and knowledge: “Thou favorest man with knowledge, and teachest mortals understanding. So favor us with knowledge, understanding, and discernment from Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, gracious Giver of knowledge.”[695] This petition, remarks Jehuda ha Levi,[696] deserves its position as first among these prayers, because wisdom brings us nearer to God. It is also noteworthy that the Synagogue prescribes a special benediction at the sight of a renowned sage, even if he is not a Jew, reading, “Praised be He who has imparted of His wisdom to flesh and blood.”[697]
4. Maimonides holds that in the same degree as a man studies the works of God in nature, he will be filled with longing for direct knowledge of God and true love of Him.[698] “Not only religion, but also the sciences emanate from God, both being the outcome of the wisdom which God imparts to all nations,”—thus wrote a sixteenth-century rabbi, Loewe ben Bezalel of Prague, known usually as “the eminent Rabbi Loewe.”[699] The men of the Talmud also accord the palm in certain types of knowledge to heathen sages, and did not hesitate to ascribe to some heathens the highest knowledge of God in their time.[700] As a mystic of the thirteenth century, Isaac ben Latif, says: “That faith is the most perfect which perceives truth most fully, since God is the source of all truth.”[701] Of the two heads of the Babylonian academies, Rab and Samuel, one asserted that Moses through his prophetic genius reached forty-nine of the fifty degrees of the divine understanding (as the fiftieth is reserved for God alone), while the other claimed the same distinction for King Solomon as the result of his wisdom.[702]
5. Thus the spirit of God creates in man both consciously and unconsciously a world of ideas, which proves him a being of a higher order in creation. This impulse may work actively, searching, investigating, and creating, or passively as an instrument of a higher power. At first it is a dim, uncertain groping of the spirit; then the mind acquires greater lucidity by which it illumines the dark world; and, as one question calls for the other and one thought suggests another, the world of ideas opens up as a well-connected whole. Thus man creates by slow steps his languages, the arts and sciences, ethics, law and all the religions with their varying practices and doctrines. At times this spirit bursts forth with greater vehemence in great men, geniuses who lift the race with one stroke to a higher level. Such men may say, in the words of David, the holy singer: “The spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was upon my tongue.”[703] They may repeat the experience of Eliphaz the friend of Job:
“Now a word was secretly brought to me,