[NGFP-BookClub] Concluding second session

[michael Rosenak]

Dear Friends: Hope you are thinking about our subject and, since it is largely midrashic, learning about it and perhaps thinking of some midrashim that suggests themselves to you as a result of your study. As I noted in my first "mail" of this morning, I will be out of range for electronic communication Thursday and Friday, so my next meeting with you will be early Sunday morning. By then, I hope you will have thought about, and hopefully responded to, questions three and four:
4. The first Mitzvah given to Adam, and then to Eve, commanded them not to eat of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." How can eating apples or pears have anything to do with anything? Is this a paradigm for the "ritual" mitzvot, suggesting what God had in mind  for the divine-human contact through actions or prohibitions that teach  self-limitation? In which they learn what is "good" (obeying God's commandments) and "evil" (not obeying)? 
5. Does the midrash about Aquilas makes the verses from Psalms more instructive and more universalistic or perhaps less so?
I also suggest that you read my short essay for SessionThree. I imagine that we shall find much controversy between participants on the matter discussed here: Sacred Texts in an Age of Scientific Inquiry. On Sunday I will suggest moving, on Monday, to the first two questions of Session Three, but for now, further thoughts on Session Two are welcome. All the best, and somewhat in advance, Shabbat Shalom. Michael Rosenak.
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