"In Adam's fall -
We sinned all."

Rabbi S.... would not deny the fall of Adam through sin, as Jewish theologians are agreed on that point. What he, and other Rabbis deny is the real seriousness of it; the result attributed by Christians to that first sin of humanity. He would deny that the sin of Adam affected the nature, the spiritual status of man; that it required a Second Adam to restore man to the favor of God, through sacrifice, such as the Messiah made on the Cross. I assume we are all agreed that the Old Testament is the best authority on the subject. Yet what appears therein is but the fore-shadowing of what is seen in the New Testament, as the content of the seed is not seen in its fullness until it blossoms forth.
   Yet the evidence in the Old Testament is sufficient to show that the Jewish repudiation of original sin, in the Christian sense of the term, is unsound. David says of himself,

"Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 50:7).

What other than original sin can here be referred to? It could not refer to the moral conduct of his parents, as David is declared to have been the offspring of a marriage that was "honorable and undefiled."
   In the Wisdom of Solomon, we have more definite evidence, as one of the results of original sin, death, is mentioned,

"God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him.
"But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world" (2:23-24).

   The "devil," referred to in the Wisdom of Solomon, came in the form of a serpent, as Moses tells us in Genesis 3:1. This vile creature lured Eve, who in turn ensnared Adam into doing what God forbad, eating of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:9). Adam as head of the human family, the source of the nature of man, Eve included, is the responsible cause of the affliction called the sin of our first parents, but more correctly the sin of Adam. We are, in our humanity, the inheritors of the condition that existed at the point of origin of humanity, Adam. Therefore what Adam lost we are deprived of, such as freedom from the drudgery of toil, pain, death, etc. This is not a personal sin on our part, as it was on the part of Adam, it is a condition of deprivation called original sin. We suffer from the war of our first parents against God, just as coming generations are going to suffer financially for the expenditures of the present war of nations, a war that was not of their making, an indebtedness they had no part in determining.
   When discussing questions of this kind, it is necessary to go back at times to some things of simple, yet basic import, upon which, fortunately, there is an agreement, even though we disagree when drawing conclusions therefrom. One of these things is the principle of holding man, not God, responsible for the transgressions of man. God made everything "good," Adam included, that is perfect of its kind, as Moses said,

"God beheld everything he had created, and it was very good" (Gen. 1:31).

   While Adam was made perfect, as were all animals, he differed from other creatures in that he was endowed with free will. That means he had the faculty of choosing good or evil; the power of obeying or disobeying God's will, as have you and I. Animals below man, being devoid of that faculty, can neither do a moral nor an immoral act, for they are non-moral beings. Only Adam and his descendants were subject to dishonorable thoughts, false hopes, pride, lust, in a word, sin. Though Adam was made perfect; though he had the innocence of a child, he had the powers of a man. Those powers permitted him, if he so willed, as they permit us, to defy the very God that made him. As a result of the abuse of those powers he lost his innocence, the Garden of Paradise, and other things that will be mentioned in my next letter, not only for himself but for his descendants. It will be sufficient to name two of those things that are plainly evident. Adam was punished with hard labor, and death, that man has since suffered,

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the earth,--for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return" (Gen. 3:17,19).

Adam's rebellion against God, caused him to be punished. He and his descendants had to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. The things that God made to serve man without hardships, such as the land, man had to till and to struggle to bring forth its fruits. That original sin of Adam was the sin of humanity, for Adam was humanity in the beginning. He was punished by bringing death to himself and thus to all humankind, for he was condemned to return to the dust from which he came. That is, the basis for St. Paul's statement,

"Therefore as through one man sin entered into the world and through sin death, and thus death has passed unto all men--" (Rom. 5:12).

   The same principle St. Paul set forth in his Epistle to the Romans was enunciated by the Son of Sirach, known in the Talmud as Ben Sira, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, about 250 years before the Apostle to the Gentiles, viz.,

"By the disobedience of one man, many were constituted sinners" (5:19).

Enough has been said to settle one point in particular, that is that there is warrant in Jewish writings, in the Old Testament, for belief in original sin, which has wounded human nature. More will follow, as promised.

Sincerely in the Messiah
D.... G........

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