Genesis 3:2

The Biblical narrative tells us that in the Garden of Eden there were two central trees, the Tree of Life (Etz HaJaim / עץ החיים ), which represents divine unity, direct spiritual wisdom, eternal life, and consciousness that is not fragmented into dualities, for us believers our Savior and redeemer Jesus Christ. And from the Kabbalah in the sefirot, this Tree represents Tiferet (harmony) and higher wisdom (Chochmah), its highest expression.

On the other hand, we are told about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Etz HaDaat Tov veRa / עץ הדעת טוב ורע ), which represents dual consciousness, the mixture of light and darkness, the confusion between the sacred and the impure, and is associated with the sefirah Daat, which intellectually unites Chochmah and Bina, but when not rectified, creates separation and judgment.

Understanding this makes it easier to assimilate that the Cunning (עָּרוּם) of the serpent and the Tree of Knowledge are closely linked, since: עָּרוּם (arum), cunning, appears just before the transgression of the fruit of knowledge. Interestingly, this word has the same root as עֵרוֹם (erom), naked, used to describe men and women just before they sin.

This reiterates that cunning and knowledge go together. The serpent (representing the ego, separate desire) uses knowledge as a tool to seduce. Cunning is not divine wisdom: it is intellect disconnected from spiritual light, serving self-interest.

Tree of Knowledge: Tree = 160, of knowledge = 479, Total: 639. Tree of Life: Tree = 160, of life = 98, Total: 258. Note that the Tree of Knowledge has a higher value, but is "inflated" by duality (good + evil). It is more complex, but more confusing.

The gematria of serpent = 358 is the same as Messiah = 358, implying that the power of the fall and the power of redemption are at the same point. The key is how that knowledge is used. Just as sin entered the world through one man, grace will come to us through one.

The apparent opposition between the trees is therefore not absolute. They are simply two distinct paths to acquiring consciousness. The Tree of Life is a direct and luminous path, access to pure, unmixed knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge is the indirect and experiential path, which involves fall, discernment, and return. The soul is "tainted" but can rectify.

After sin, knowledge became a dangerous mixture of truth and falsehood, which is why God expels man, not as punishment, but out of mercy: "Lest he put forth his hand and take also from the tree of life, and live forever..." Genesis 3:22 explains that if human beings access the tree of life in a state of dual confusion (after sin), they would perpetuate an eternal existence in error, remaining enslaved to a world where good and evil are forever indistinguishable. It would be a form of corrupt immortality.

From that moment on, we are the product of our decisions, even if we don't measure their effects. Furthermore, with these choices, we affect not only our experiences but also those of those with whom we coexist.

Therefore, the concept of appreciating "וַתֵ רֶ א " (Va'tere - "And saw") is directly related to understanding "רָּ אָּה" ("seeing"), which is connected to perception and understanding, since although we assume that we see with our eyes, we are actually capturing the reflection of external light, which is processed by our optical system and then by our brain's lobes, projecting an image onto our consciousness. This image, through our interpretations, reproduces an identity that either gives meaning or not to our realities, and therefore, recognizes that experience.

As we have already come to understand, words have not only different interpretations but also biased translations according to the one who receives the information and adapts it to their own knowledge. This implies that understanding Eve as that "הָּ אִ שָּ ה " (Ha'isha - "The woman"), who represents all of us as humanity through her feminine essence, which spiritually is related to concepts such as receptivity, our intentions, our intuition, and therefore, the use of these tools to obtain or not a direct connection with our essence, explains from other perspectives that although Eve is the one who initiates the process that leads to the knowledge of good and evil, this was within the divine Plan so that we could learn to better coordinate our knowledge and therefore our free will.

The concept of the Tree in this case, with fruits that generate desires, "כִי טוֹב הָּ עֵץ לְ מַ אֲכָּל " (Ki tov ha'etz lema'achal - "that the tree was good for food"), transports us from our symbolic and imaginary dimension to the Tree of Life (עץ החיים), our Lord Jesus Christ, the spiritual structure of the universe and wisdom. This means that Eve's perception that the tree was "good for food" denotes that natural attraction to knowledge, but in this case, ignoring that it was forbidden and that, therefore, she should have abstained, fulfilling the Father's will above the primary desire that today calls us to transcend while respecting the limits imposed by the Creator.

From gematria, the value of the word "הָּ עֵץ" (Ha'etz - "The tree"), 165, calls us to feed on the fruits that provide us with divine wisdom and not worldly, selfish knowledge that, although it motivates our perceptions and desires, is neither useful nor good for our lives. Therefore, understanding the nature of our knowledge and how it generates consequences, even from fruits that we initially consider pleasurable, remains one of our daily tasks.

It is our decisions and their effects, even if unconsciously we do not measure them, that determine our degree of closeness or distance from the Creator and His work. And although, like Eve, we continue to be guided by forbidden desires, the truth is that we cannot confuse "good" fruits with "desirable" ones, and even less let ourselves be guided by emotional impulses that go against divine mandates, as we are not only transgressing against Him but also falling into the effects and consequences of such wrong choices.

Learning to discern between selfish desires and true spiritual needs involves letting ourselves be guided by the only wisdom, the divine one, and not by human knowledge, which in many cases misinforms, disorients, confuses, and distracts us from the coherence that divine precepts envision for us.

Every intention that touches our unconscious being, just like Eve, has a profound impact on both our surroundings and our soul, and we must align our desires and decisions with the Creator's purposes and not our own. This self-awareness enables us to grow in our relationship with the Creator and with ourselves.