https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=t8lwDIYWp_o
And so you can imagine now on the outside of the wall of the garden, outside of the inner holy place, you have these thorns which are to protect the tree from attack. So you have a world of hostility which is outside the garden and so the thorns need to be protected. So that’s let’s say the way that it’s presented in St. Ephraim the Syrian. And so once you see how that structure comes together, you can remember some parts in the Bible which are surprising to some. Like for example when Christ in the New Testament at some point he curses a fig tree. And you think why is Christ cursing a fig tree? St. Ephraim connects Christ cursing of the fig tree to let’s say taking away the power of the covering, taking away the power of this covering by which we are removed from the more holy places. Just like the death of Christ split the veil in the temple, so too when Christ curses the he removes the coverings as he brings man closer and closer to the mysterious unity which is at the summit of the mountain. But what’s really important to see is when we have to come to Christ, we have to come to Christ. And so in the tradition there are many hints that help us to link this idea of the trees in the Garden of Eden with the cross of Christ. Now it’s already there in the story for those who can see it, but there are many little traditions that can help us to make sense of it and help us put the puzzle together. For example there are traditions which say that the tree of life or the tree of good and evil, there are different traditions on that, the wood of that tree will have been taken to make the staff of Moses, will have been taken to make the pillar for the bronze serpent and then that piece of wood would continue down on the line to finally become the cross itself. And there are traditions which say that for example the axis of the cross was made out of the tree of life and the horizontal of the cross was made with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And you can see in the story of the crucifixion you have the three crosses which emphasize this centrality and duality with the good thief on one side of Christ and the bad thief on the other side of Christ, representing this notion of good and evil as the two branches of the cross let’s say or three crosses, it doesn’t really matter how you see it, it has the same idea of this central thing and then two things on the side. And also in the story of the crucifixion Christ has the thorns, that thorn bush which was outside of the garden, that thorn bush is then put on Christ’s head. When you start to think about the crucifixion your mind starts to play tricks on you because that story is very difficult to understand, it’s very difficult to encompass all the mystery that is contained in the story of the crucifixion. But Christ takes the lowest thing, the lowest thing on the story of the mountain, these thorns that are outside to protect them and he changes them into a crown and so the lowest becomes the highest. And then he is nailed, fixed onto this hierarchy, onto both the tree of life and the tree of good and evil with the crown of thorns. And then as he is on the cross the Roman soldier pierces his side and out of his side comes but also comes water. And this water comes down and the blood comes down. And so you have this crazy image which repeats actually this story from the beginning of the Bible that Christ on the cross is not just the tree of life, not just the tree of good and evil, not just the thorn bush, not just the mountain, he’s all those things all together at the same time. And he’s also the water which flows down and reaches out into the world and in early Christian images they explicitly showed the cross with the four sources of paradise at the feet of the cross. And so that’s enough said about that but I just wanted to show you how that image of the tree in the crucifixion takes up its highest form and the Christ’s relationship to that tree creates an image which is, it blows your mind, you can’t really understand because he also dies on the tree. He also dies on the tree in the way that God told Adam that he would die if he eats of So Christ eats the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and has access then to the tree of life. And you can see that that’s the case, they show it in the text because when he dies the veil of the temple, the veil of the holy of holies is ripped into two. And so it’s this idea that Christ enters into the highest place, eats the fruit of like Sheneferim says, as a way to enter into the holy of holies which is the tree of life itself. And so finally just to bring everything together you have to come toward to the end of the Bible where in the final revelation of the entire cosmos you have a cube, a cube which is the final form, the static form of everything that can be revealed and in the middle of this cube is the tree of life and you can also imagine this tree of life and the rivers flowing out and filling up this new Jerusalem which is perfect and made of perfect material. And so there’s this notion of a final manifestation of everything from the beginning until the end into one impossible but eschatological manifestation.