Adam & Eve: a new twist on an old story

The story of Genesis, of Bereshit, has always fascinated me even from the time I was old enough to read. At eight years old, I was very much into astronomy and cosmology. So, reading about the creation of the Universe as told in the Torah came naturally to me.

However, I did not have as much interest in the story of Adamah and Heva, or Adam and Eve until I reached my later early adult years when my interest in male-female relationships increased.

The story, as I understood it as a child, bothered me for a long time. I felt like Adam was set up by God…that God had given him a test God knew he would fail. What puzzled me was that if Adam had no t eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, then how could he know he was doing something evil? You see, I equated the knowledge of “good” and “evil” as being the same thing as knowing right from wrong.

Later on, I understood that the two are not the same. I do not have to touch a hot stove to know not to touch it. Likewise, I do not have to desire to know evil to realize that it is wrong. The desire to know evil is wrong not only because God tells us to avoid it, but also because there are consequences involved. To often people are unaware of the consequences of evil until after they have engaged in it.

From the very beginning, God made it clear to Adam that there would be consequences for the desire to know evil.

Like most people who first heard the story, I was taught that Adam was created form the ground and that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. About five years ago, I started reading read commentary on this story by Rashi and others, such as the Arizal, What I learned was that a literal translation of the Hebrew says that Eve came from Adam’s side. It does not specifically say, rib. In other words, Adam and Eve were attached to each other – either at the sides like Siamese Twins or back to back. Further reading seems to point to Adam and Eve being attached back to back. He looks at Adam and declares, "It is not good for man to be alone I will create an ezer k'negdo." The word ezer means helper, and the word k'negdo takes on various explanations, each defining the role of woman in completing and perfecting creation.
Simply put, the word k'negdo means opposite him. It can even mean against him. Rashi quotes the Talmud that explains that there is no middle ground in relationships. If one merits than the spouse is a helper; and if one does not merit, then the spouse is a k'negdo, against him.
The passage says that Eve was created to be against Adam, or literally to face him This is what you’d expect if she originally was behind him. Eve was created to be Adam’s counterpart in everything.

It raises a very interesting idea. If Eve and Adam were actually physically joined, how is it that neither them were aware of the other. The reason is because Adam and Eve were one single entity. Adam was a newly created being and was just beginning to learn about himself. This is not hard to understand. How difficult is it for us – beings of a single gender – to understand ourselves?
Adam was a perfect human being with both masculine and feminine qualities in equal abundance.

In Bereshit 1:27 it says, “And G-d created man in His own image, in the image of G-d created He him; male and female created He them.” Therefore, in the beginning, men and women were one. However, even the most complete human being still requires companionship. Even the most perfect man still needs to have the love of a woman. I know I do.

Adam was lonely and so God separated Eve from him to be his bashert – his soulmate.

However, there were consequences of splitting them apart. In splitting Eve from Adam, the male and female abilities of humans and their respective souls that once totally integrated and enmeshed were now divided. Together as one entity, both male and female sides complimented each other and worked in concert. By being split apart, they became vulnerable – mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Once totally connected at the back, now Adam and Eve would have to learn how to reconnect to each other emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Adam and Eve existed on both a spiritual plane of existence and a physical one as well. Essentially, they were in two places at the same time. Some Torah scholars describe Adam and Eve as literally walking with their heads in the clouds. Before the Fall, that is where their minds and souls spent nearly all of their time.

The one thing that did not exist on the spiritual plane but did exist on the physical plane was the end of existence, or, as we commonly call it, Death. Adam and Eve as primarily spiritual beings had no knowledge of death. They were unaware of death. They were unaware of nakedness.

When Eve was separated from Adam, Adam recognized that she was “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,” There was instant chemistry. He immediately recognized the physical connection between himself and Eve – however, he failed to see the spiritual connection between them (or the necessity of having a spiritual connection) – that would come later.
I have to believe that when Adam first saw Eve, what he experienced was love at first sight. Remember how you felt with your first love. It felt all consuming. The desire to find and to bond with someone of the opposite sex is so powerful that even the Torah makes special mention of it:

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. (Bereshit 2:24)

Originally, a man and a women were of one flesh. Now that they are separate, they yearn to be one again.

Adam and Eve were in love. They were inseparable. Wherever Adam went, Eve went, and wherever Eve went Adam went. Whatever Adam did, Eve did, and whatever Eve did, Adam did. That is why Adam ate what Eve ate because the two of them were inseparable. But, more than that, it is because Adam so loved Eve that he could not stand to be without her. He could not and would not allow her to suffer, all by herself, the consequences of her actions. I will explain why.

For, you see, at the moment Eve ate from the Tree, she fell away from Adam – she disappeared from the spiritual plane of existence. She became mortal. Adam then realized that the only way he could stay with Eve, the only way that he could be where she was now would be to eat from the Tree.

Before eating from the Tree, evil existed outside of our bodies. Evil and the yetzer hara (the evil inclination, or the desire to do evil) existed outside of Adam and Eve. When they brought the fruit into their mouths, evil entered into their minds and hearts as well.

Adam mistakenly thought that he would be strong enough to withstand the effects of evil. He thought he could withstand the yetzer hara all by himself – without God’s assistance. God knew though that Adam was not ready to handle evil and that is why God prohibited Adam from eating from the Tree.

However Adam was not able to withstand the effects of evil and neither are people today. How often do people make the same mistake as Adam…thinking that we are strong enough to withstand the powers of sin without the help of God? Every day we do battle with our evil inclination that tries to lure us into sin – whether it is as subtle as talking gossip or as unthinkable as committing murder. The reason we have addictions to alcohol, drugs, gambling, and pornography even the Internet, is because we are not strong enough to handle it by ourselves.

The consequence of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was that Adam and Eve became mortal. Death was not a punishment, but the result of becoming mortal.
Adam was not punished because he harkened unto the voice of his wife (as it says in Bereshit 3:17) but because he spoke as his wife had spoken; that is, to refuse to accept responsibility, to obscure the truth, to blame others for his own transgressions, and to deny the good that God had done for him by bringing Eve to him.

When God asked Adam, "Where are you," God was not asking Adam where he was physically. He was asking Adam where he was spiritually. Adam had disappeared from the spiritual plane of existence. Adam's body had gone from being a body of light to one of naked skin. Adam experienced shame not only for disobeying God but also for desiring to do evil.

And as is usually the case, the cover-up is worse than the crime.

When God asked Adam, “What is that you have done? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to?“ God was giving Adam a chance to make amends. This was the perfect time for Adam to come clean. Had Adam admitted responsibility and made tshuvah, repented his wrongdoing, God would have forgiven him and allowed him and Eve to stay in the garden.

Instead he did not accept responsibility, he was not contrite, he did not repent or ask for forgiveness, he made up lame excuses for his behavior, and he blamed his wife and God for his own failures.

Think about our society. So many people think of themselves as being a victim. People are quick to blame parents, teachers, and bosses, everyone else except themselves. Do you remember the boy who was acquitted of murder because he claimed that playing violent video games was responsible? The lack of responsibility for oneself is the biggest downfall in society. And the tendency to blame everyone else is pervasive in every facet of society.

Adam’s eating of the Tree created more than his separation from the spiritual plane. It caused more than his separation from God. It also caused a separation between him and Eve – the woman that he loved. “Straight is the way and narrow is the path” that leads to God, and the only way that a man and a woman can stay on that path together is for them to be spiritually in sync. When Adam was created, he and Eve were together both physically and spiritually. As a consequence of becoming physically separate, their spiritual connection was compromised. It was easy for Adam to recognize the physical attraction he had to Eve. What he failed to recognize was just how important was their spiritual connection and how important re-establishing that connection would be.

Had they remained as a single entity, they would never have succumbed to the lies of the Serpent. Had they waited until Shabbat, they would have been reunited spiritually and that spiritual connection would have made them able to ignore the physical world and to turn a deaf ear to the Serpent.

But they had not been fully reunited. They were still vulnerable, spiritually and emotionally. They were not on the same page. And, they did not realize what would happen to them if they tried to go their own way.

I believe that Eve was jealous of Adam's relationship with God. She was envious of the amount of time that Adam spent with God. It was her envy that the Serpent used to entice her. If the situation were reversed; that is, if Eve were the one who had the primary relationship with God more than likely Adam would be envious of Eve as well.

Eve was also testing Adam by eating the fruit. She was testing him to see just how much he loved her. Would he disobey God for her? She wanted to be the most important thing in Adam's life. It is not hard to understand her motivation. When people who are immature fall in love they can become very jealous and possessive. They do not like to be apart from one another and demand more and more of each other’s time. Adam and Eve were immature.

The Serpent convinced Eve that if she took the fruit from the tree, that she would be like a god. Eve did not want to have the power of God, but she did want to take Adam's attention away from God. What happened was a reversal of fortune. God said to Eve, "Because you have done this, all of your desire will be directed towards your husband and he will rule for you." Instead of all of Adam’s attention being directed to Eve, all of Eve's attention would now be directed towards Adam.

In the end, Eve did become God-like in her capacity to create life through childbirth. A woman's innate desire to have children is the strongest one she has, and it is that desire to have children over which her husband has dominion. Do not interpret that to mean, “control.” By making Adam the focus of Eve's attention, God intent was to underscore the importance of a husband and wife working together to fulfill God’s purpose for them.

While the relationship that a husband has with his wife is very important, it should not take precedence over his relationship with God. Likewise the love a man has for a woman is not the same love that a man has for God – even though the two are similar in nature. Eve should have realized that the love and attention Adam gave to God and that God gave to Adam took nothing away from their relationship or from the relationship that God wanted to have with her.

In other words, Eve had no reason to be jealous or envious.

In an ideal marriage, there is a love triangle: the husband loves his wife, the wife loves her husband, and both of them love God just as God loves both of them equally. Even when there was a breakdown in this love triangle, when Adam and Eve looked to blame each other, God never lost his faith in them, or his trust in them, or his love for them.

Sin is all about allowing evil to enter into our lives. Sin is about walking down the wrong path. Because when we do, when we allow evil to enter our lives, it turns us against our spouses, our families, our children, our friends, our neighbors, and ultimately ourselves and G-d. What Adam and Eve lost in the Garden was more than their innocence. They lost more than their immortality. The most precious thing they lost was the unconditional love relationship that they had with each other and with God.

That is what the desire to know evil took away from them.

But, what they did gain from acquiring all that knowledge was that they can turn away from evil, that they can learn to rebuild the love and trust for each other again, that they can create new life and new beginnings, that they can reconnect on a physical and spiritual level if, and only if they keep their priorities straight – by keeping God at the top of that triangle, by making God the most important thing in their life with their spouse 2nd (or their kids 2nd followed by their spouse) and then themselves last. Not the way it usually is with “Me first.”

And to never again lose sight of which way the path to righteousness leads and what it takes to really walk together on that path and work together as equal partners in Life.

For that is the way G-d intended man and woman to be. For its only when man and woman are both on the same page spiritually and both understand what God requires of them, both individually and collectively, that the way back to Eden can be found.