The Torah says God placed the man in the garden "to work it and to guard it." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 2:15) tells us where Adam came from and what the work really was.
God took the man "from the mountain of worship, where he had been created" — the Temple Mount, the same spot the previous verse told us his dust was gathered from — "and made him dwell in the garden of Eden, to do service in the law, and to keep its commandments."
The Targumist has made the garden a synagogue. Adam's vocation is not horticulture. It is Torah. "Service in the law" and "keeping its commandments" — these are the verbs of a Jew at prayer, not a gardener at work. Eden exists as the first yeshiva, and Adam as the first student. When he later fails to keep a commandment, the betrayal is not just of a rule but of his whole purpose.