Taking a fresh and imaginative look at one of our most familiar parshiyot, Rabbi Steven Ettinger wonders what might have happened if Adam and his helpmeet had engaged a good defense lawyer--and whether the real offense was not the eating of the forbidden fruit but something arguably more important -- with a message for us to learn.
The
sequence of events when Hashem creates Adam, as recounted in Bereishit, Chapter
2, is perplexing:
1. He creates and animates man (forming clay and then infusing it with Divine spirit – interpreted as giving man and only man the power of speech);
2. He plants Gan Eden and places Adam there;
3. The plants (trees) sprout, including the Trees of Knowledge and Life;
4. Main rivers flow from Eden to irrigate Gan Eden and the civilized world;
5. Hashem “takes” Adam and “places” him in Gan Eden to work and protect it;
6. He commands Adam that he may eat from all trees except the Tree of Knowledge and warns that—if he eats from that tree, he will die;
7. Hashem recognizes that it is not good for Adam to be alone, so he provides him with a helpmate;
8 Finally, Adam names all of the animals.
There are
many questions we could ask: why was Adam placed in Gan Eden twice? Why did the
trees only sprout after Adam was placed in Eden? What exactly was Adam’s task
in Eden? Why did Hashem give Adam just the one command?Why was it only at the
end that Hashem created woman? Where did the animals come from? A lot of trees
seem to be mentioned, but no animals.
The key to
understanding this unusual sequence is the famous story that follows. The
“woman” encounters the nachash who says to her “Didn’t Hashem tell you
not to eat any fruit of this garden?” He said this so that he could engage her
in conversation (see Rashi to Bereishit 3:1), As we know, he convinces her to
eat the forbidden fruit, she then gives it to Adam—who also eats it. Hashem
reacts by punishing Adam, the woman and the nachash. Adam is exiled from
the Garden and the woman is cursed with birth pains and being subjugated to her
husband.
The
takeaway is that Adam and the woman could have used a good lawyer. When Hashem
confronted them, they did not really mount an effective defense. They merely
tried to shift blame—Adam to the woman, then the woman to the nachash.
However, they actually had an effective and quite reasonable defense.
As noted above, the creation of Adam was unique in that man is the only entity in creation with the power of speech (creation has four categories: inanimate objects, vegetation, living creatures, speaking beings – only man is in this last category).
At this point
the woman does eat—but she does not die! Since she did not do so, one can only
imagine the conversation she had with Adam:
Woman:
“Guess what? There is another speaking ‘man,’ there may even be other Gods or
God-like beings, so eat the fruit of the Tree and enjoy – I did.”
Adam: “But
God said if we eat it, we will die!”
Woman: “I
ate it and I am still here, so as you can see, it is perfectly safe – and there
are some amazing benefits. It is consciousness raising!”
So Adam ate
too. Again, this is perfectly
understandable—and even excusable, given the facts and circumstances. This gave
Adam the right to “blame or rely on” the woman (she presented a cogent argument
and had eaten the fruit and did not die), and the woman could “blame” the fact
that the nachash defied the natural order (which perhaps implicitly made
it Hashem’s fault). So why were they punished? After all, iit does NOT seem
like they did anything wrong. Or, at worst, maybe Hashem even entrapped them
with the talking nachash!
Perhaps the
reason Adam was punished has nothing to do with the command not to eat the
fruit. That was simply a misdirection. Hashem punished Adam because he violated
the primary command: “to work and protect the Garden.”
Returning
to the sequence in Chapter 2, Hashem placed Adam in the Garden before the trees
sprouted. Adam watched the trees emerge but
he expended no effort in nurturing them. And when the rivers burst forth to
irrigate the Garden, Adam again had no need to do anything. Nevertheless,
Hashem places him in the Garden again and tells him to work and protect it.
But we can
ask “What work? What protection?” It
doesn’t seem that there is anything for him to do. But there is! “Working” and “protecting”
are code, synonym for” taking responsibility”—just like the sign on President
Harry Truman’s desk: “The buck stops here.” Adam named the animals because he (and
not the lion) was the King of the Jungle. In other words, he was responsible. And,
though he did not need to plant or irrigate the Garden, he was responsible for
it—for good and for bad.
When Adam erred
and ate the fruit (possibly NOT a sin, as explained above, as he may have had
had a valid excuse), he failed in his obligation was to take responsibility.
That was the job Hashem gave to him.
That was what he was commanded to do. Hashem likely did not care about
the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, that was a mere pretense.
We have emerged from the Yamim Noraim with a clean slate. We have done teshuvah. We also know that we will err and sin, likely doing many of the same things we transgressed last year and the year before, etc. Hashem knows this. We know this. We need to learn the lesson from Adam’s behavior: if we want to avoid serious consequences, we need to accept responsibility. If you peel away the excuses, if you do not assign blame to others, if you do not redirect and misdirect—only then can you make positive changes.
