Why did the serpent in the Garden of Eden get a punishment?

Question: If the serpent in the Garden of Eden had no free will, why did it tempt Chava (Eve)? Was it created with an ability to sin? If it didn’t have free will, why did G-d punish it?

First, look at it this way. If that story of what happened in the Garden of Eden was not revealed to us in the Torah, you would not have any question about what might have happened in the first days of creation that caused snakes to be creatures that slither on the ground with no legs. You would not imagine that it might be a consequence of something negative that was perpetrated by the original snake. You would assume that it’s just the way that snakes naturally are, and you wouldn’t learn any moral lesson from it.

So you can ask, why did G-d include it in the Torah text? Everything written in the Torah is there to give us a lesson, i.e., instruction. In fact, the word “Torah” comes from the Hebrew word for “instruction.” As you said, the serpent did not have free will, so we can’t say that the consequences it received were punishment for a sin that it did.

Obviously, G-d wanted snakes to be creatures that slither on the ground with no legs. That’s the way they were destined to be, and He could have created them that way from the outset. But there were some particular lessons that G-d wanted to teach us, so He taught us those lessons through allowing the temptation of Adam and Chava to happen through a serpent, and then giving the serpent the consequences (which produced its correct anatomy) that would teach us those lessons. To read about those lessons, see Rashi’s explanations of the verses in Genesis ch. 3.

A deeper explanation of what happened

The Midrash explains in more detail what took place. A certain great angel was opposed to the creation of mankind, so he acted through the serpent to tempt Chava, hoping to bring about a downfall of the first humans. Since the angel opposed G-d’s will, it was given a consequence measure-for-measure: G-d brought upon it a downfall, lowering it far down from its original high spiritual level. When G-d cast down the angel, He also cast down the serpent that it acted through.

For more explanation, see our page “How could angels oppose G-d’s creation of human beings?”

Perhaps one might be so brazen as to question the “fairness” of G-d’s giving the serpent a physical consequence, although it acted without free will. This is equivalent to a person questioning the “fairness” of G-d punishing a person’s sins with physical suffering, or even corporal punishment, on the person’s body. After all, the body is just some physical flesh, that has no free will, and in fact, no will at all. It is the fault of the sinning soul that the physical body goes through any motions of a forbidden action. So one could argue that only the soul should be punished in some spiritual way, and nothing should be inflicted on the body.

On the other hand, the soul would argue that it does not deserve any punishment, because it’s not the soul’s fault that it sinned. The soul was put into a physical body against its will, and that caused it to have physical desires and ambitions. If G-d would have left the soul in the spiritual realm where it wanted to be, it would never have gotten involved in transgressing any commandments (which only apply in the physical world). The soul will blame its sin on the body.

The purpose of expulsion from the Garden of Eden

However, in the long term, the way that G-d arranged this (including with the ultimate goal to have perfected resurrected people as souls in physical bodies in the bliss of the World to Come), provides the best opportunity for the soul, and the best opportunity for the body.

Furthermore, in the Messianic Era and its ultimate level in the World to Come, the Divine revelation and the spiritual level of the people in that time, will be *incomparably* greater than it was for Adam and Chava in the Garden of Eden before they were tempted and as a result, expelled from there. The point is that the spiritual level of the World to Come for human beings could only come about through people first being removed from the lower spiritual level of the Garden of Eden, and going through the tests and tribulations that we have had throughout history.

The actions of the snake, and the angel that acted through the snake, are the way that G-d brought this about, because G-d brings about the advancement to a higher spiritual level through a process of first falling down to a lower level, in order to be able to rise higher than before. The Rebbe explained the purpose of a personal fall.

Although G-d retains His Divine attribute of judgment and justice, He softens and even overrides it with His Divine attribute of mercy, which is aroused in response to a person choosing the option of repentance that G-d provides for him.