Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, best-selling author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, doesn’t like the story of the Garden of Eden as interpreted for millennia by teachers of the Bible. He never has, in fact. The way that it has God demanding perfection of his humans and casting judgment on their “sin” for naturally being human has given him countless hours of exasperation, so now finally he has decided to get it off his chest with this elegantly-written book of 181 pages, How Good Do We Have To Be?

He believes that the story shows Eve, the first woman who inhabits the Garden, as being courageous rather than disobedient. She wanted to experience life beyond animalistic understandings and so, when she takes that bite that opens her eyes, her gift to her descendants becomes life, not Sin and Pain.

I found Kushner’s point struck home when he offered a different ending to the story of her, Adam and the beguiling serpent. Here Eve refuses to be brave and turns away from the apple, thereby earning God’s reward. It is to have and rear children easily so that they don’t need her or her them. They could die and she won’t feel their loss. Adam’s “reward” is to live a life of laziness and food will be bountiful around him, anyhow. Listen to what God says to the couple:

“For the rest of your lives, you will have full bellies and contented smiles. You will never cry and you will never laugh. You will never long for something you don’t have, and you will never receive something you always wanted.” And the man and the woman grew old together in the garden, eating daily from the Tree of Life and having many children. And the grass grew high around the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil until it disappeared from view, for there was no one to tend it. Pp 33

Luckily, I’m sure you’ll agree, that didn’t happen and instead the couple encounters the feeling of shame at the awareness of their nakedness. Kushner devotes a chapter to the difference between guilt and shame and why and when we experience them. He addresses the father-son and mother-daughter relationships and the expectations and needs of each in the next chapter (understanding your parents is more appropriate than forgiving them, for example) but the following chapter, Choosing Happiness Over Righteousness, was much more fascinating to me. It is truly the heart of the book, the crux of it all. Why? Well, since Kushner doesn’t want us to be little perfectionists, he is also saying that we shouldn’t be righteous (no relation to the Righteous Brothers, though).

He discusses our intimate relationships and how our craving for said righteousness will corrupt them. I’m no stranger to this concept, so I skipped a few pages, but Kushner wasn’t boring or pedantic-sounding. I’m just an impatient reader! Of course as a rabbi he believes that a man needs a woman and vice versa in order to be whole and complete (that line from Jerry Maguire haunts me, revolts me, mocks me), but after a few more chapters about Cain and Abel and “Life After Eden,” he admits that it’s a whole person who can survive the loss of a mate without feeling there’s a link missing. Yeah, it was confusing to me, too, until I realized that being whole means that you know how to love. Even if they’re not in your life physically, you still are spiritually connected.

Final Thoughts

So the answer to ‘how good do we have to be?’ is ‘as good as we can be.’ I think you’ll agree that a life untested or without challenge is one without love as Kushner’s different ending to the Garden of Eden story proved. Adam and Eve weren’t really punished or banished because of their great sin, but they were sent out into the world to bless it, to be custodians or caretakers of it since the animals could not be (hmm, I wonder about that!).

I admit I got this book to purposefully follow my review of The Satanic Verses, which, in a creative way, also explores the whole question of whether we’re good or evil. Soon, though, I had another reason to review it, for I’ve written a short novel called Eden in Limbo and plan to turn it into a play. Thanks to the kind-hearted, humble rabbi, I’ve been inspired to start! I can see him being very uplifting and helpful to Christians or Jews who have been as perplexed over the Eden story or who live their life by the harsh lessons they’ve been taught from it.

Perhaps you’re only curious and spiritually-tuned? Kushner’s easy-flowing wisdom from years as a practicing rabbi will sound a pretty note to your inner ears. Am I wrong in assuming that most of us have dreams of Paradise, or Eden, shining like the sun before us if we could only grasp it? Have you yourself tried to capture it, believing that you just need to be a little better here and a little better there to be worthy of such communion with your God?

Then you’ll really appreciate this book because, more than the Bible, it shows you a compassionate God that you can really live with. At least I can! Now Eden can be seen for what it was meant to be. It’s right here in our flawed humanity where it’s always been since Adam and Eve.

So do you get it? Kushner’s smiling, ever patient and full of the joy of good literature (he refers to many classics throughout) as well as what it means to be wholly human, although homosexuals might find issue with whether he is running half steam on that. Or maybe that is to be understood without directly addressing it. Anyway, I don't hear him condemning anyone here. After all, this universal struggle to be more good than evil, he wants us to know, is our Eden and as good as it gets.


Recommended: Yes