he looks upon him like the looking of the sun upon clear water, then there is represented to him a sensory image and his speech is heard voices, and there occurs to the sensory powers a semblance of awe, and to the one inspired a semblance of fainting, and the pen is not a inanimate instrument, nor the tablet a flat surface, and the writing an inscribed engraving, but the pen is a spiritual angel, and the tablet is a spiritual angel, and the writing is the picturing of realities.

And the Creator, the Exalted, said to the first man, Adam: From all the trees of paradise you shall eat, but as for the tree of knowledge of good and evil which is in the midst of paradise, you shall not eat from it, and whenever you eat from it, a death you shall die.

And Adam is represented by the entire human race, and the forbidden fruit is vice in a general way, and its existence in the midst of paradise is an indication that the trial is in the midst of pleasures, so it is upon the person to be alert, otherwise if he releases for his soul the rein of desires, then he sticks to the earth and distances himself from the spiritual life symbolized by the tree of life.