The Way Back to the Tree of Life

A gate closed in mercy

Shabbat shalom.

In Parashat Bereshit, after Adam and Chavah ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Hashem says: “Behold, man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever” (Genesis 3:22).

At first, this verse sounds like a punishment. But the Ramban teaches that Hashem wanted His decree of death to stand. If man had eaten from the Tree of Life, that decree would have been canceled. Think about what that means. If fallen man had lived forever in his broken condition, he would have stayed broken forever. Keeping him from the tree wasn’t cruel. It was merciful. God closed the gate so that one day He could open a better way back.

The Torah then tells us that Hashem placed the cherubim and a flaming sword “to guard the way to the Tree of Life” (Genesis 3:24). The way was guarded, but it wasn’t destroyed. From that moment on, the story of Scripture is the story of God making a way home.

Why must we believe in the Mashiach?

That brings us to a question that comes up often in Messianic Judaism: Why do we need to believe in the Mashiach? Isn’t it enough to love Torah, keep the commandments, and live a good life?

Bereshit 3:22 gives us the answer. Adam and Chavah’s problem wasn’t a lack of knowledge. They had just gained the knowledge of good and evil. Their problem was that knowing what is good doesn’t give us the power to become good. Knowledge didn’t bring them back to the Garden. Only God could open the way.

The prophets understood this. Jeremiah spoke of a new covenant in which God would write His Torah on our hearts and remember our sins no more (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Isaiah spoke of a Servant who “was pierced for our transgressions” and by whose wounds “we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). The Torah was never the problem. Proverbs calls wisdom “a tree of life to those who take hold of her” (Proverbs 3:18). The problem is the human heart, which needs to be made new.

Yeshua spoke directly to this. He said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Yeshua isn’t speaking against the Torah, and he isn’t speaking against Israel. He’s speaking about the gate of Eden. Since the Garden, a flaming sword has guarded the way back to life. Yeshua says that he himself is that way.

So why do we need to believe that Yeshua is the Mashiach? Believing in him isn’t something extra added on top of our Judaism. It’s the answer to the oldest question in the Torah: how can people who know good and evil, but can’t fully do good, return to the Tree of Life?

Adam reached for life on his own terms and lost it. Yeshua invites us to receive life on God’s terms. He says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51). Look at the words he uses: eat and live forever. They are the same words Hashem used in Genesis 3:22. What was put out of Adam’s reach in the Garden is now offered to us through the Mashiach.

He also says, “He who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). The decree of death that the Ramban spoke about doesn’t have the last word. Through Mashiach, the way that was closed is opened again.

From Eden to the Age to Come

The Bible opens with the Tree of Life under guard and closes with it restored. In the last chapter of Scripture, the Tree of Life stands again beside the river of life, and its leaves are “for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). The story that begins with exile ends with a homecoming.

This is why we read Bereshit again every year. We don’t read it only to remember what was lost. We read it to remember that Hashem never stopped making a way back.

A Call to Action

As we begin the Torah cycle again, let me leave you with three things to think about:

1. Don’t settle for knowledge alone. Adam came to know good and evil and still lost his way. Torah study should change our hearts, not just fill our minds.
2. Hold on to the Tree of Life. Hold on to the Torah, which is called a tree of life. And hold on to the Mashiach, through whom the Torah is written on our hearts.
3. Live as people on the way home. Every day of teshuvah is a step back toward the Garden.

May this new year of Torah bring each of us closer to the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. May we eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in the presence of Hashem.

Shabbat shalom.