חטא אדם הראשון and the curse of Ayn Rand

Rav Ezra Shapiro

One of the punishments of man after חטא אדם הראשון was "בזעת אפיך תאכל לחם". By the sweat of your brow you will provide for yourself. The Ramchal, among others, says that man should ideally try to minimize as much as possible his involvement in his own physical work. Why would someone gratuitously try to add to a punishment? We certainly wouldn’t try to voluntarily increase the pain of childbirth in order to extend the punishment of Chava.

In this understanding, if we had to accentuate the pasuk it would read as follows “בזעת אפיך תאכל לחם” you will now have to work hard in order to eat. What changed was the self production of food. Before the punishment – and presumably in the dream of the future gan eden - you could eat without working and your time could be used for other, higher, uses.

Rav Wolbe presents a very different understanding to the punishment. 

When we were originally placed in the garden we were placed there "לעובדה ולשמרה" – to work it and care over it. The change which took place after the punishment is that now we would work for our sustenance, for our own needs, and not be able to focus solely on our tafkid via-a-vis the garden – the world.

If we were to accentuate the pasuk within this understanding we would accentuate in the following way “"בזעת אפיך תאכל לחם - the drive of your work will be to provide for yourselves. What changed was the psychological incentive to work. Before the punishment – and presumably in the dream of the future gan eden – you could be driven to work hard for your tafkid and caring for the world without any incentive of self sustenance.

As Warren Buffet famously said about his plan not to leave his inheritors with enormous wealth “I want to leave them with enough money to do anything, but not enough money to do nothing.” That reality of enough money to do nothing is the punishment of Adam harishon. That curse to chase only our own needs is the curse idealized by Ayn Rand.

In Rav Wolbe’s model, while we acknowledge the psychological reality of the punishment, we certainly try to minimize the punishment as much as possible by reminding ourselves that the intrinsic value of our responsibility - our tafkid - is our actual goal.