There is a profound Jewish teaching that reveals the biggest difference between the Torah’s worldview and the Christian narrative of sin and redemption.
It begins in the Garden of Eden.
When Adam and Eve are banished, God stations cherubim with a flaming sword that turns every way (mitahapechet) to guard the path to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24). The Torah does not say the Tree of Life was destroyed. It says the path to it was guarded. That path was never removed — it was protected.
Rabbi David Fohrman points out that the Torah deliberately echoes this same language in the story of Sodom (Parashat Vayera). The destruction of Sodom contains eight precise parallels to the banishment from Eden:
- Sending out a hand (shalach yad) to grab something
- Being sent out of one’s home
- The word mikedem (from the east)
- A garden-like setting
- Angels
- Divine fire
- The verb mitahapechet (turned over / reversed)
- And the eighth: guarding “the path” (derech) — in Eden to the Tree of Life, in Sodom to “the path of God, to do righteousness and justice” (tzedakah u’mishpat).
The Torah is telling us something powerful: Sodom is what happens when a society loses the path to the Tree of Life.
Sodom
Sodom had rules. It had order. It had justice (mishpat). But it had no tzedakah — no compassion, no care for the stranger, no regard for the vulnerable. They institutionalized evil. Their “justice” was to rape and rob guests so no outsiders would enter their paradise. When a society loses the balance between justice and kindness, it becomes Sodom — and it must be destroyed.
The path to the Tree of Life is not a yellow brick road. It is the lifelong conversation with God about how to live tzedakah u’mishpat — doing what is right and what is just, even when they are in tension.
Christianity tells a different story.
Inherited Sin Nature Original Sin
It says Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and brought sin and death into the world. Because of that original sin, humanity is fallen and needs a savior. Jesus dies to pay the penalty, and through faith in him we regain access to eternal life — the Tree of Life.
But the Torah never says Adam’s sin doomed all humanity to spiritual death. It never says we lost the Tree of Life forever. It says the path to it was guarded. And Proverbs 3:18 tells us exactly where that path is:
“She [the Torah] is a Tree of Life to those who grasp her, and whoever holds onto her is happy.”
The Tree of Life was never taken away. It was given to us at Sinai. Every time we study Torah, struggle with its commandments, and try to live tzedakah u’mishpat, we are walking the guarded path back to the Tree of Life.
Eat Freely Eat From All The Trees
Adam and Eve were not commanded to stay away from the Tree of Life forever. They were given a choice — and they chose knowledge over life. But God did not abandon them to eternal death. He gave them clothing, He gave them children, and ultimately He gave their descendants the Torah — the true Tree of Life.
Christianity’s need for Jesus as the solution to original sin only makes sense if you accept that Adam’s sin created a debt that no human being can repay. The Torah does not teach that. It teaches that we are not fallen beyond repair. We are distant, but the path is still open. Every generation can choose to walk it.
The Tree is For all Of Humanity.
That is why Judaism does not need a savior who dies for our sins. We already have the antidote. It is in our hands every time we open the Torah.
The real sin of Sodom was not just sexual violence. It was the complete loss of tzedakah — the refusal to care for the stranger, the vulnerable, the guest. When a society institutionalizes cruelty and calls it justice, it destroys itself.
The path back is still there. It is the path of Torah. It is the path of doing what is right and what is just.
And that path leads to the Tree of Life.
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Hazan Gavriel ben David