bn_songbook | P'ri Etz Da'at

In Jewish tradition, opinions differ as to what real plant (if any) the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad represents, or what real historical development (if any) the eating of its fruit represents — some say it's basic sentience or moral self-awareness, others suggest a technological change such as the development of agriculture.

I'm firmly of the opinion that Eve made the right choice — that G!d's experiment and our story as modern humans doesn't properly begin until we eat the Fruit of Knowledge, and that this story is ours to try to turn towards the good (we're not doing so great right now), not to reject.

In this song, I imagine that each Fruit on the Tree of Knowledge is different — a different flavor moral awareness. Some are sweet, some are bitter, and some are outright poisonous. If Eve wasn't wrong to eat of the Tree in the first place, certainly Cain was wrong to keep on eating the particular fruit he picked after that bitter first bite — and that, I think, is the crack in the world and the beginning of the main thread of Genesis: brother quarreling with brother to win father's favor, until finally we meet two brothers, Ephraim and Menashe, about whom almost nothing is written because they do not quarrel so there is no drama to write about.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

listen to this song

/ Am - / E - / E7 - / Am - /

Once there was a woman

In a garden new and strange

She was the second human

But the first to learn and change

/ F - / Am - / G - / E - /

For the Tree of Knowledge was there to teach

That both Good and Bad were within her reach

So she ate the fruit and she kept the seed

To grow again when the world had need

/ Dm - / E - / Am ... /

And the first-picked fruit of the truthful Tree

Said: what I call good is what's good for me

Then she bore two brothers

Of all brothers they were the first

Who received the Tree their mother

Meant for blessing as a curse

For it bore much fruit, and in many kinds

A balanced breakfast for growing minds

And the world was young, and it might have worked

But a tree, like a serpent's tongue, is forked

And the fateful fruit of the leftmost limb

Said: It's bad for me when it's good for him

As brother vies with brother

Through myth and history

Each generation plucks

A different fruit off of the Tree

For there's not just one way that we all should

Turn away from Bad and turn towards the Good

There are many ways, and the worth of each

Lies in how we live, not in what we preach

So taste the fruit, but leave room for doubt

And if it tastes bitter, then spit it out

May the One who mothered us

Now guide us towards the Good

Not to do as brothers have often done

But to live as brothers should

Like the brothers who finally passed the test

And proved two brothers can both be blessed

As the Tree of Life in its truth proclaims

Mothers bless their sons in those brothers' names

See, the fruit of knowledge was no mistake

But it all depends on which one you take

Good and Bad both grow from a common root

The only way to know them is by their fruit

As She's tried to teach since that fatal fall:

That the good of each is the good of all!