D'var Torah - Parashat Bireshit, '68

I delivered this d'var at our monthly participatory service in October.

Bireshit is a huge parsha, it begins with the creation of the world and ends on the edge of the flood. The amount of human time it spans is unknowable. In the passage that we just heard read, we see the world created, and it's important, I think, to watch the way it happens - we begin with heaven and earth - the creation of space - and then light and darkness, which are called day and night - the creation of time. And so it proceeds, things created in pairs, each thing both opposing its counterpart and, through that opposition helping its counterpart to do something neither could do alone - if Heaven and Earth were not separate from each other, there would be no space for anything. If night and day were not separate from each other, time would not pass and we could not say "וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד" - "and there was evening, and there was morning: day one."

Moving to the creation of people, we find that this same tension between opposites is an essential aspect of the divine plan, as the Holy Blessed One resolves "it is not good for the man to be alone, I will make for him an עזר כנגדו."(Gen. 2:18)

This is a difficult phrase to render into English. An attempt to be literal might give us "a help as his opposite." The words themselves seem to contradict each other. Is this companion to help Adam, or to oppose Adam? Rashi, who frequently asserts he comes to explain the plain meaning of the text, cannot get out of this one without providing a midrash - "if he is worthy then [she is] a helpmate, if he is not worthy, then she is opposite him, to fight him"(Rashi, 27)1. This solution is elegant because because, rather than resolving the tension, it teaches us that that tension is there to instruct us. We are to learn that just because one possible meaning is true does not mean that the other is false.

Another approach to this problem comes from the lexicographers Brown, Driver and Briggs. If it is Rashi's purpose to teach us the plain meaning of the text, how much more so must it be for those preparing a dictionary, and yet a literal rendering is beyond them as well, as they offer us the following definition for עזר כנגדו: "a help corresponding to him i.e. equal and adequate to himself"(BDB 617). This rendering deviates from the other meanings they give for נגד, which tend to cluster around meanings like "opposite" or "in front of." However it is instructive, and appealing to our egalitarian sensibility, that Eve is created as Adam's equal. Carol Meyers, in her book Discovering Eve reinforces this idea, by noting the preposition "כּ־" meaning "like" or "as" and observing that "the prepositional phrase establishes a non-hierarchical relationship between the two"(85).

If this is indeed a non-hierarchical relationship, and if this relationship is, as Rashi suggests, about supporting the other when worthy, and opposing the other when not worthy, then we find that it is as incumbent on Adam to support Eve when she is worthy and oppose her when she is not, as it is for her to do the same for him. Indeed, I am going to suggest today that it is his failure in just this duty that facilitates the situation with the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad.

As a quick refresher, the story goes very much like this: The serpent approaches Eve, asks if it is really the case that she and Adam cannot eat from any tree in the garden, she counters that they may in fact it from every tree except the tree of kowledge of good and bad, which they may not touch, lest they die. The serpent parries that they will not die if the eat from it, but will become like God, knowing good from bad2. She takes the fruit, eats it and gives some to her husband with her. They realize they're naked, and hide when God next shows up in the garden.. God knows instantly what happened, and when he inquires about it, Adam blames Eve and God in a single breath, and Eve blames the snake. God then informs everyone of the consequences of their actions.

There are two important things to note in the story. The first is that although we are told "[the serpent] said to the woman . . ." he does not say "you," but rather "you-all" or "youns," that is, he is speaking in second person plural as if addressing both. Now it may be that he is using this because he is inquiring about both of them, or it may be that he is doing so because he knows Adam is present. The second is that "she took the fruit and she ate, and she gave also to her man with her, and he ate." The words "with her" seem to me to mean very plainly that Adam was there on the scene throughout. So, if we look only at the p'shat, the simple meaning, we must ask ourselves, "why didn't he act?"

God, informing everyone of the consequences of their actions, wonders the same thing; saying to the man "because you listened to the voice of your woman. . ."(Gen 3:17) although there is no accounting of Eve saying anything to Adam, only that she gave him the fruit. So then to what is God referring? The only utterances we have from Eve in the text thus far are her words with the serpent. If we stick to the simple meaning of the text before us, then it must be those words that God means. Adam's responsibility then is that rather than supporting her when she was arguing against the serpent and opposing her when she decided to take the fruit, he sat idly by and did nothing.

God meant for there to be tension between them. Not the contentious "I'm good and you're bad" kind of tension that rips the world asunder, but rather the tension between two trees leaning on each other such that neither falls. And it is because Adam avoided even that positive tension, refusing to be a true partner, that the labels of "good" and "bad" entered the world, and the strife associated with them.

Just as heaven and earth, light and darkness, and sea and land achieve great things by their balanced opposition, so it is the divine will that we and our partners should achieve great things balanced opposition - supporting each other's aspirations and correcting each other's foibles. It sometimes takes a suspension of one's own immediate needs and wants to support another, and it sometimes takes great courage to tell someone you love that they may be missing the mark, but this is what it means to have and be an עזר כנגד. May we all have the strength for it.

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The following material was not part of the d'var, but was made available as appendices to those curious.

Review of Traditional and Feminist responses to the situation of the tree.

A Summary of the Tradition

Midrash Hagadol asserts that the serpent wanted to get Eve alone thinking "any attempt to seduce Adam is certainly doomed to failure. Let me first approach the woman because women listen and are more easily persuaded"(3:1 cited by Weissman, 45). The implication here, that the woman would be the easy mark, is untenable not only because of its misogyny, but because the snake has no basis for such an inference. The best we can say here is that the woman may have seemed the better target because she received the law second hand, and not directly from God. But the question of how she would be alone is not answered by our text. Midrash Rabbah attempts to supply an answer:

Now where was Adam during this conversation? Abba Halfon b. Koriah said: He had engaged in his natural functions [sc. intercourse] and then fallen asleep. The Rabbis said: He [God] took him and led him all around the world, telling him 'Here is a place fit for planting [trees], here is a place fit for sowing cereals.'(Gen. R. XIX 1-3)

Whether the rabbis argue that Adam had fallen asleep after sex, or give him the ultimate alibi by claiming he was with God at the time, we cannot help but note that the purpose of these midrashic narratives is to remove Adam from the possibility of any direct participation, either by comission or omission, in the matter of eating the fruit. At most, they read God's statement to Adam that "Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree that I told you 'don't eat from it' the earth will be cursed on your account"(Gen. 3:17) to mean that his sin was not asking Eve about the fruit's provenance before eating it himself (Ohr Hachayim on Gen. 3:17, cited by Rosenberg, 58).

Two feminist readings, in brief.

Carol Meyers notes that "it is the woman, and not the man, who perceives the desirability of procuring wisdom. The woman, again not the man, is the articulate member of the first pair who engages in dialog even before the benefits of the wisdom tree have been procured"(91). Naomi Rosenblatt, who reads this tale as a "charming allegory of sexual awakening"3 understands "she gave also to her husband with her" to mean that "Eve reaches out to Adam, holding the fruit (the shape of which suggest fertility, the female breast). In contrast to the female [who deliberated out of concern for pregnancy], the male is immedately susceptible to any sexual invitation, is instantly responsive"(9).

Reflections

Just as the patriarchy faults Eve for being an easily seduced airhead, so the feminists fault Adam for being an easily seduced meathead. Both repeat the error of blaming the Other to absolve the Self that Adam commits in blaming God and Eve in a single breath. It didn't fly with God in the garden, and does not hold much creedence today.

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Works Cited

Brown, Francis et.al. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996.

Davis, Avrohom. Metsudah Chumash/Rashi. New York: Ktav Pub Inc, 1999.

Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Dover Publ, 1956.

Meyers, Carol. Discovering Eve. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, USA, 1991.

Rosenberg, A. Genesis: a New English Translation Volume I. New York: Judaica Press, 1993.

Rosenblatt, Naomi. After the Apple. New York: Miramax Books, 2005.

Simon, Maurice. Midrash Rabbah. London: Soncino Press, 1983.

Weissman, Moshe. The Midrash Says. Union City: Bnay Yakov, 1999.