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Getting the Real Pleasure

Written by Rabbi David Aaron

Tu B'Shvat is a time to repair mankind's most famous mistake.

The celebration of Tu B'Shvat -- the 15th of the month of Shvat on the Hebrew calendar-- is not mentioned in the Bible. The oldest reference is found in the Talmud, where Tu B'Shvat is called "the new year of the trees." The Talmud ascribes significance to this date only in terms of the legal implications of taking tithes (10%) from fruits. However, about 500 years ago, the kabbalists revealed the deeper meaning of Tu B'Shvat. They taught that Tu B'Shvat is an opportune time for fixing the transgression of Adam and Eve. Amazingly, just through the simple act of eating fruit during the Tu B'Shvat festive dinner, we are able to contribute to this cosmic repair.

But how? The Torah says that God put Adam and Eve in the garden "to work it and to guard it." The Jewish oral tradition teaches that this refers to the do's and don'ts of the Torah. The do's are the positive mitzvot and the don'ts are the negative mitzvot. Adam and Eve were given very little to do: eat from all the trees of the garden. And their only don't -- their single prohibition -- was not to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What was that about?

The Torah teaches that God created the world so that we could experience goodness in general, and His goodness in particular. Experiencing His goodness -- bonding with God -- is the greatest joy imaginable. God empowers us to bond with Him by serving His purpose for creation. Just as when we do for others, we feel connected to them, so, too, serving God enables us to bond with Him. Ironically, serving God is actually self-serving -- profoundly fulfilling and pleasurable.

If we eat and enjoy the fruits of this world for God's sake -- because this is what He asks of us -- then we are actually serving God and bonding with Him. We serve God by acknowledging that the fruits of this world are His gifts to us, and by willfully accepting and enjoying those gifts.

The root of Jewish life is, in fact, enjoyment -- the pleasure of connecting to God. We connect to God by serving Him, and this means obeying His command to enjoy the fruits of this world.

While in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve's entire obligation was to enjoy all the lush fruits -- with the notable exception of one forbidden fruit. Sure enough, they went after that one. This misdeed demonstrated their confused orientation to the real meaning of pleasure. Rather than seeing the fruits as pleasurable because they are God's gifts and enjoying them as part of their service to God, they wanted to partake of them independently of God -- in fact, contrary to His will.

The Art of Receiving

As already explained, real pleasure is experiencing a connection with God. We enjoy the ultimate spiritual pleasure when we enjoy the physical pleasures of this world as part of our divine service. Then, the act of receiving and enjoying God's gifts to us is amazingly transformed into a selfless act of serving God.

True pleasure was not in the taste of the fruits, but in eating and enjoying these gifts from God. But Adam and Eve sought pleasure independent of God.

This is the root of all wrongdoing. Do we see the pleasures of this world as a gift from God, enjoying them in the service of God, and using them as conduits to a connection to God? Or, do we seek pleasure independent of any connection to God? In other words, is the pleasure about our bodies, or is the pleasure about our souls?

Following Adam and Eve's fatal mistake, God told them, "Because you ate from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from, the earth has become cursed." God was not punishing the earth because of Adam and Eve's transgression, rather He was informing them that their distorted orientation toward physical pleasures had turned the earth into a source of curse rather than blessing, for them and for their descendants.

Depending on how we view the physical world, it is cursed or blessed. If we look at the physical world as a conduit to a connection with God, and if, as a service to God, we gratefully receive His gift of delicious fruits, we thereby experience His presence and the physical world becomes blessed. The physical world then becomes a bridge between the human and the divine. But if we fixate on the physical, independent of any relationship with God, and mistakenly perceive this world as the source of our pleasure rather than as a bridge to God, then this world becomes a barrier to God and a curse for us.

The Power of Blessing

Now that we understand the transgression of Adam and Eve, we can begin to appreciate how we can contribute to its fixing on Tu B'Shvat.

On Tu B'Shvat, we attempt to fix the transgression of Adam and Eve when we enjoy the fruits of the earth, preceded by the recitation of an appreciative blessing to God -- "Blessed are you, God..." in other words, "God, You are the source of this blessing."

An apple is not just an apple, an apple is a blessing. Maybe I could believe that apples come from trees, but a blessing could only come from God. If I really contemplate the mystery and miracle of the taste, fragrance, beauty and nutrition wrapped up in this apple, I see that it's more than just a fruit -- it is a wondrous loving gift from God. When I taste an apple with that kind of consciousness, I cannot but experience the presence of God within the physical.

When I recite a blessing before I eat and acknowledge it as a gift from God, I reveal the divinity within it, and the transient sensual pleasure of the food is transformed, because it is filled with eternal spiritual pleasure. The food then feeds not only my body but also my soul. However, when I eat without a blessing, it's as if I stole the food. Perhaps it will nourish and bring pleasure to my body, but it will do nothing for my soul. The soul is only nourished when it experiences its eternal connection to God.

When we enjoy the fruits of the previous year as wonderful gifts from God and affirm our yearning for God's presence manifest in the fruit, we are like a baby sucking his mother's milk with great appetite. We draw forth with great abundance the "milk of the earth"-the sap in the trees rises up with great abundance, so that they will bear much fruit in the coming year.

On Tu B'Shvat, we enjoy the fruits as God's gift and experience their pleasure as a connection to God. In this way we fix the transgression of Adam and Eve. We celebrate how eating and enjoying the fruits of trees can be a bridge to God, and how it can bring back the blessing to the earth.

Excerpted from the forthcoming book, "Inviting God In: The True Meaning of the Jewish Holy Days" (Trumpeter/Random House)

Author Biography:
Rabbi David Aaron www.rabbidavidaaron.com is Founder and Dean of the Isralight Institute, and author of: Seeing God , Endless Light , The Secret Life of God , Kabbalah Works [audio book], and most recently, Inviting God In: Celebrating the Soul- Meaning of the Jewish Holy Days. .

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2 Tishri 5771

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