May 31, 2024 / 23 Iyyar 5784
Not long ago, a much beloved fifty year old song turned up on the radio. WXPN was playing 100 tree related tunes in honor of Arbor Day and their list included this gem from the New Riders of the Purple Sages’ debut album:
Hey, look at the green, green tree
It ain’t quite as green green as it used to be.
And hey, look at the cool clear water
It ain’t quite as cool and clear
As it ought to be, and
We live in the Garden of Eden, yeah
Don’t know why we want to tear
the whole thing to the ground.
We live in the Garden of Eden, yeah
Don’t know why we want to tear
the whole thing down.
A personal note of disclosure: New Riders of the Purple Sage literally lived on my turntable for a couple of years when I was in high school. I have to say, it still sounds pretty good 40+ years later!
Watching spring emerge these past weeks has left me thinking that actually we do live in the Garden of Eden, or at least something close to it. Greening trees, cool clear water, flowers and flowering plants galore – it’s been pretty spectacular.
The statement of blessings found in Leviticus 26 offers up a similarly Edenic picture as its definition of an ideal world.
I will establish My abode in your midst, and I will not spurn you.
I will go about (literally ‘walk’) in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people. I the LORD am your God who brought you out from the land of the Egyptians to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. [Leviticus 26:11-13]
God is palpably present in Vayikra’s ideal world – the mishkan will be in our midst. Even more, God will walk among (with?) us, a kind of intimate connection that directly evokes the Garden of Eden where God also walks in the garden along with Adam and Eve. And finally, in Vayikra’s ideal world, we human beings, free people, walk erect – we stand up straight, proud, dignified.
My friend, Professor Tamar Kamionskowski, in her elegant Leviticus commentary, reminds us that this ideal world “is internally focused and is essentially about food, progeny, and a sense of security and safety.” Vayikra, she tells us, “focuses on internal harmony.” Perhaps if we do the same, we really can live in the Garden of Eden!
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi David
