Uncle Boris, the Shrapnel, and the Secret of the Taste of Eden

In the picture is my dear Aunt Shoshan (Shoshana) during training at a shooting range. When she was 4, her father left her, and she grew up as an independent woman with a short fuse. Whenever she hugged me tight, I would smell herbs and a curious, strong scent from her armpit.

In 1969, she fired two bullets at an intruder who entered her orchard. One bullet missed, and the other entered the buttock (it's unpleasant to even say) of uncle Baruch (Boris), her future husband.

It turns out that uncle Boris, who was then a student at the agricultural school, had discovered a rare species of wild apples that grew in Shoshana's orchard. And so he found himself lying with a bullet in his buttock while Shoshana's rifle was aimed at him. But since there was no malice in his actions and he was also handsome, Aunt Shoshana summoned the village veterinarian and decided to treat him. And so, a true love was born between them, and they got married.

But a small piece of shrapnel, unfortunately, remained stuck in uncle Boris's buttock, so he had to take pillows his wife sewed for him everywhere, because it was hard for him to sit on a hard surface.

The pains would worsen at the beginning of the winter days, and then I remember uncle Boris lying on his stomach, holding a journal of the Farmers' Association of the South Caucasus, while Aunt Shoshana placed compresses on the wound, and uncle Boris would occasionally quote a verse from the Song of Songs, saying, "Love is as strong as death."

Uncle Boris was a philosopher of agriculture, and one time when I came to visit them, as he lay on his stomach, he decided to reveal to me the secret of man's beginning in the Garden of Eden from an agricultural perspective.

He emphasized that the first commandment man received was to eat fruit from all the trees in the Garden of Eden, including the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but only in the right order.

And to explain what a tree is, he would say that the feminine form of the word "tree" (etz) is "advice" (etzah). When I give someone advice, I am conveying a certain content, knowledge. Tree = knowledge.

To eat from the tree means to internalize knowledge. Because to eat is to internalize, meaning to take something external like a potato and make it internal, to internalize it. For example, before I ate an orange, there was Sasha and an orange. After I ate it, it became a part of me. Now it's Sasha + orange. Now I'm a talking orange! (And not a clockwork one).

Man (Adam) eats earth (adamah). Man is earth that has risen, stood on its feet, and started to speak.

To eat from the tree in the Garden of Eden is to internalize knowledge, a certain content. And before the Tree of Knowledge, man had to internalize the Tree of Life.

And in general, he would emphasize that unlike other nations, who say that man eats to live, we Jews say the opposite—man lives to eat. To eat the entire cosmos, all of existence, to internalize it and turn it from inanimate being into a human one, with morality and will, so that the entire universe becomes one general Man. And that is a secret.

He would also say that the spies in the Torah were right when they said that the land of Canaan is a land that consumes its inhabitants, and that this is a good thing.

And the explanation is simple: everywhere else in the world, man eats a cow that eats grass that eats earth, and so man eats the land. But the Land of Israel is so strong energetically that it is like it has its own personality, its own will, and therefore it determines the character of its inhabitants.

It's not for nothing that the word for land, eretz, comes from the word for will, ratzon. That's why once every seven years we let the land lie fallow, we rest, and we let this land be.

We treat it as a personality, as a partner, and not like Mother Earth, as the gentiles do. And there are many secrets in this. And it's not for nothing that from time to time she expels us and we go into exile, and then we return to her. These are the relations of a couple.

He would also add that the first man was both male and female, joined together back to back. Man was composed of two ribs (tzela), and tzela also means side, like the side of a triangle. But the problem was that they couldn't see each other's faces. There was no dialogue between them, no true partnership. And so God decides to separate them, to separate the two sides.

And he would emphasize that the whole story in the Garden of Eden between Adam, Eve, and the serpent is an internal dialogue in the soul of the first man.

Where the man symbolizes morality, the woman symbolizes emotion, and the serpent is man himself, in terms of his natural intellect—that is, a developed intellect, but without morality. These are the three sides of one personality. Of each of us.

Many years later, already in Israel, I heard a similar interpretation from my rabbi, who is of Algerian origin, and he received the interpretation from his rabbi, who was a great Kabbalist. And this made me wonder, maybe uncle Boris was also a hidden Kabbalist? But that's another story.

But it's a wonder how uncle Boris, with the shrapnel, knew the secret that Jews on the other side of the world knew. The ways of the Lord are mysterious.

But in the early years, this knowledge was a bit hard on me. For example, after I would eat a schnitzel, I would think, what am I right now? A schnitzel that became Sasha? Or, God forbid, Sasha who became a schnitzel?

And the secret is that after you've eaten, you must do a moral act with that power. And then the food you ate takes part in your moral act. And so, after a schnitzel in a baguette, I would try to do a moral act, like helping an old woman cross the street, even against her will. And then the schnitzel, which before was a piece of chicken with breadcrumbs and an egg, is suddenly elevated to the moral realm, to the choice between good and evil.

And so I eat and elevate the whole world to the level of Man, and not the other way around, God forbid. But back then, I didn't understand the secret properly, which led to weight gain and high sugar levels.

And then, I asked him: "uncle Boris, but what about the flame of the revolving sword that prevents access to the Tree of Life?" uncle Boris lowered his voice, and while still lying on his stomach, said:

"Regarding the flame of the revolving sword that guards the access to the Tree of Life—it's related to the relationship between a line and a circle. A sword is a line. When it revolves, meaning it makes a circular motion, it becomes a circle.

The relationship between a line and a circle is one of the central topics in the teachings of Kabbalah. There is the concept of the 'line of righteousness'—which is the moral realm, and the 'circles'—which is the realm of nature, where there is no righteousness and morality, and it is cyclical, locked into itself, deterministic.

The revolving sword is a line that becomes a circle. It's also related to the number Pi, the ratio between a line and a circle, and it is infinite, uncountable. It starts with the digits 3.14, and 314 is the gematria of one of God's names—Shaddai—El Shaddai—who said to His world, 'Enough' (Dai). (Related to the secret of Tzimtzum/Contraction).

So the revolving sword is connected to one of the secrets of existence. And the fact that it prevents access to the Tree of Life is a mental, cognitive block. It is expressed in the fact that our intellect is enslaved to certain thought patterns, and it's hard for us to break free, to break beyond these boundaries, to a spiritual, mental freedom. And in the future, this will change, and we will all eat from the fruit of the Tree of Life."

And then uncle Boris smiled a mysterious smile and fell asleep. Aunt Shoshan gave me a sign to be quiet and placed an apple in my palm, from a rare species of wild apples, and for a moment I felt that I was holding in my hand the fruit of the Tree of Life…

And now, after many years, I remember this and think—how wonderful this world is, how everything is connected. The shrapnel that developed into love, the schnitzel that becomes Sasha, and the secret of the taste of the Garden of Eden. Praised be His name, I say to myself. Yes, Sasha, this world is not as simple as it seems. And a word to the wise is sufficient.

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Dedicated with great love to my friend Yoni Graiver, and to the "Nativ" course.