Before Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, the serpent had already opened her eyes. Genesis tells us that she saw that the tree was "good for food," that it was "a delight to the eyes," and that it could "make one wise." She already understood, that is, three human needs: the physical, the aesthetic and the intellectual, and that the tree promised satisfaction. Reason is at work; so is imagination. What she did not yet know was what it would mean to choose to transgress. In that choice, as Leon R. Kass shows, Genesis finds both the pathos and...