What was the real curse given to mankind after the first sin?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau explains that the curse after the first sin was “the sweat,” being sent to look for a loaf of bread. And the deepest part of the curse, he teaches, is “that they’re just looking for bread.”
Bread itself is necessary. But when bread becomes the purpose of life, a person “never rises above the condition described after the fall.” He works so he can survive, and survives so he can go back to work, “a circle of continuation.”
That is why the verse is not only ancient history. “When a person’s whole identity becomes surviving, rather than living for a higher mission, they’re experiencing the condition that the verse describes.”
Related concepts: Purpose · When a machine does the work
In A Soul at Peace: Bread and Purpose
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
The curse after the sin was having to look for bread by the sweat of one’s brow.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
A person can be swallowed by survival, with all his energy going to work, bread, and sleep.
What may be behind it
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that hard work is not the curse, since man was placed in the Garden to work it even before the sin. The curse is in the bread when the bread becomes the goal.
Deepest human truth
The curse is not a punishment from history but a state of mind: the moment bread takes the place of purpose.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Wealth, Work, and Divine Sustenance · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz