Adam's Sin

Reb Zusha once asked his brother, "My beloved brother, the holy writings say that all souls were once contained in Adam, the first man. If so, we were also there at the moment he sinned and ate from the tree of knowledge. Why did we not stop him?"

Rav Elimelech answered, "Brother, we had to let him eat the fruit. If he had not, the lie of the serpent would still stand and would never have been proven false. The serpent told him, 'Your eyes will open and you will be as Hashem, knowing good and evil and able to create worlds.' Adam had to eat the fruit so that he could see that even after eating it he was still just a human being and no more."