Why did God create the Tree of Knowledge? What was the point?
It’s an hieratic fable. We may as well ask why Pandora was given the Box. The Tree is a symbol of duality – “Good” vs. “Evil” – and the duality of sexuality in particular. “Knowledge” is, in the Hebrew, loaded with sexual connotations – to “know” one’s wife is to copulate with her. When Adam and Eve eat of the fruit of the Tree, they become aware of their nakedness – of that which distinguishes them from each other as “male” and “female.” Note that it’s only after the Expulsion that Adam “knows” his wife. Note also that the Serpent, who initiates the “rebellion,” is an age-old symbol of duality and sexuality. The whole is an allegory of the original Unity, perfect, self-contained, but unknowable even of Itself, voluntarily taking on the illusion of duality in order to experience its own potential.
