"'This mitzvah that I command you today - it is not hidden from you and it is not distant. It is not in heaven, [for you] to say, 'who can ascend to the heaven for us and take it for us, so that we can listen to it and perform it?' What is the mitzvah that the Torah refers to in this verse? The Ramban writes that it is the mitzvah of teshuva (repentance); the Torah is telling us that teshuva is not something that is out of our grasp, rather it is easily attainable if only we make the effort."This raises the question, how do the spiritually dead make the effort to turn from choosing sin to choosing life? There is also the question of how G-d has made such efforts acceptable to Him, when it is He who said to Adam, 'On the day you eat of it, (the fruit forbidden to them), you will certainly die". The answer can be found in the truth that the soul of Adam was not made in isolation from the soul of Mashiach, the soul of the Word of G-d. Adam's soul, in the case of every sinner, is spiritually dead and does not possess the will nor the power to be perfectly free of the desire to sin. Our souls cannot wake themselves from the sleep of death. The tree that has been cut down cannot reattach itself to its roots.
There is a tree that G-d has provided as a metaphor of hope in the world whose branches can grow new roots if they fall into water and can reach the wet earth below. The willow is one such tree. If such branches grow into trees have they saved the fallen tree? Are they entirely new trees because they come from new roots? The soul of Mashiach in relation to the soul of fallen Adam is like this. However, the soul of Adam, the soul of a sinner, cannot use the soul of Mashiach, at its own will as a means to save itself from death.
The sentence of G-d to Adam that if they ate of the forbidden fruit they would die literally said that in dying they would die. This emphatic form has been translated, "you will surely die," or, "you will certainly die". In order to clearly bring out an essential facet of the meaning of this statement, we can, for a moment, translate it as, "you will end in death". When arguing with Eve, the serpent did not change the language and say to her simply, "You will not die". The serpent used the very same form of speech, which in the context of the temptation to rationalize the language of the commandment and its warning, can be seen to have meant, "You will not end in death." Heard in this way, it is as if the serpents argument to Eve was to the effect that death itself is a part of the plan of G-d, part of His wisdom for the nature of the world. If she were to embrace this wisdom, G-d could not leave her in death but would have to give her life beyond death. This, in effect, is the assumption that Mashiach can be used by the sinner, by the mind and will of the sinner, as a way out of death.
The truth is that Mashiach is like the branch of the willow and can bring life out of death but it is only through his own mind and his own will which is entirely obedient to the mind and will of G-d. His will is to give himself to re-create all things. It is only when Mashiach, the Son of Adam, revealed his sacrifice to Adam and Eve, that he kept the attachment of his soul to theirs by the will of G-d, that they saw the truth and repented.
Later in the essay referred to above we read:
"The Tosefta says, 'Why did Judah merit the Kingship? Because he admitted [to his actions] in the incident of Tamar.' Tamar was about to be burned at the stake for her alleged act of adultery, when she gave Yehuda the chance to admit to his part in the events. He could easily have remained quiet, thereby sentencing three souls to death - Tamar and the twins inside her. However, in a defining moment in history, he bravely accepted accountability, saying, 'she is right, it is from me.' It is no coincidence that this was the key moment in producing the seed of the Messiah. We know that the Messiah is the person who will bring mankind back to its pristine state of before the sin, rectifying the mistake of Adam and Eve. The way in which to repair the damage done by a sin is by correcting the negative trait displayed in that sin. As we have seen, the main flaw present in Adam's sin was an inability to accept responsibility for mistakes, therefore Judah's success in taking responsibility for his actions was an ideal rectification."What we must see is that the seed of Mashiach came through Judah because Judah's repentance was moved by the vision of Mashiach to come. For it is Mashiach alone, the soul of Mashiach alone, who is able to accept the responsibility for sin without any influence from the inclination to sin in doing so. It is the spirit, the ruach of Mashiach moving us, moving through the whole soul of Adam, that enables the repentance that is essential for rectifying Humanity's sin of turning away from G-d in the beginning. This is a repentance and rectification that must take place in each of us and in all Humanity as one soul. This can come only through our acceptance and our embrace of the messianic corrections that G-d has determined for the world. These messianic corrections for the world can come only through Israel, through the messianic redemption of Israel, through G-d's word of death and resurrection for Israel. It is through the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah alone that the sin of Adam can be corrected and Adam, Humanity, can be saved and brought again to the place of a completely pure obedience to all that God says.
Link here to the Hearing Seven Thunders site and the series of posts on the Judgements in Exodus and the Judgements in the Book of the Revelation of Yehoshua the Mashiach of Israel.
