Or HaChaim on Genesis 2:15/אור החיים על בראשית ב׳:ט״ו

1 ויקח השם אלוקים….לעבדה ולשמרה. G'd took man…to work it and to guard it. The plain meaning of the verse appears to be that the garden was in need of someone to work it and to guard it, whereas the truth is that this was not the case. Why would it need a guard? Who was there to steal from it? Also, if the garden needed someone to work it, who has done this chore during the almost 6000 years that the garden has been unattended? What exactly was the nature of the work which had to be performed?

2Know therefore that the entire description of the גן עדן is to serve as an example of a spiritual environment. The Torah wanted to illustrate that just as a physical environment such as earth requires a) toil, planting, irrigation, etc. in order to produce man's food supply, and b) protection against harmful substances that damage the plants, the same applies to an environment described as גן עדן. Nowadays גן עדן is the "soil," i.e. the environment for disembodied souls, seeing the bodies have been expelled. Even as such it requires both work and protection against negative influences. The specific work required in גן עדן consists of Torah study. The Torah demonstrates the validity of such illustrative figures of speech when Moses described his speech in Deut. 32,2 in these words: "May my discourse come down as the rain, my speech distil as the dew, like showers on young growth and like droplets on the grass." The "young growth" is a simile for the positive commandments. The author cites a number of examples where G'd is described as "planting" man's good deeds. The protective activity the Torah describes as לשמרה, refers to the observance of the negative commandments. Non-observance of the negative commandments of the Torah is apt to destroy the fabric of the spiritual environment represented by גן עדן. Our sages in Sotah 2 already tell us that sin, i.e. transgression of a negative commandment, extinguishes מצות though it does not extinguish the Torah. This latter statement does not mean that it is not within the power of such a sin to harm Torah at all, it only means that a single עבירה cannot accomplish that. Sustained sinful activity could certainly undermine the Torah absolutely.

3At any rate the use of such terms as "to work it and to protect it" in connection with גן עדן is perfectly justified. At the time when G'd placed Adam in גן עדן, Adam was able to see how his positive actions contributed to the well-being of the garden. Once he had been expelled he was denied the ability to see the results of his activities. His spiritual part, however, was not denied the chance to accumulate good deeds and to eventually "see" the results in the Hereafter.