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Bereishit 5760

Rabbi Yehuda Henkin

"Don't disparage anyone" (Avot 4:3).

Zilzul? disrespect, belittlement, underestimation? is, unfortunately, endemic to the human race, and in fact its roots stretch back to the garden of Eden.[1]

G-d said to man before creating woman, "...but from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil?-do not eat from it, for you will die on the day you eat from it" (Bereishit 2:17). Woman, however, later told the serpent"...but from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, G-d said, ? Don't eat from it and don't touch it, lest you die'" (3:3). Where did woman get the idea that G-d said "and don't touch it."? According to Bereishit Rabbah[2], woman added it herself, while according to Avot d'Rabi Natan[3], man added it when he conveyed G-d's warning to his wife. If we accept the traditional explanation that woman first touched the fruit, noted that she was still alive and concluded erroneously that she could also eat from it without being punished, we must adopt Avot d'Rabi Natan's version, for if she herself added "and don't touch it" she could hardly have confused her own words with G-d's.

Adam, then, treated Eve with contempt by inflating G-d's prohibition to include touching, without telling her? as if she couldn't be relied upon to observe the commandment as given. This is also clear from what else he did not tell her. Woman mentioned "the tree which is in the midst of the garden." Why didn't she call it by its name, the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Moreover, the serpent said, "the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowers of good and evil" (3:5). Since the tree's name was "tree of knowledge of good and evil," what did the serpent tell woman that she didn't know already?

Woman didn't know the name of the tree. She didn't know, because man didn't tell her. He treated her like a child, telling her what to do without sharing with her the information he himself received from G-d. The serpent gained her confidence by revealing that which her husband had withheld from her, and mixed truth with the fateful untruth, "You will not die...."

Man and woman were created equal, but from the first he related to her as an inferior; by doing so he caused her to stumble, and the result was that she caused him to stumble, measure for measure. We still suffer the consequences of this primordial zilzul, in the form of the respective curses given man and woman.

But "by the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread" is a curse and not a commandment, and man is permitted to automate the growing of food;"in pain you shall bear children" does not rule out the use of anesthesia in childbirth; and so, too, "your craving will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" is descriptive and not prescriptive. The absence of zilzul between spouses, the recognition of the equal intelligence of man and woman, is a step towards fulfilling G-d's intention that the one strengthen the other in observance of His Word.

Notes

1. For more examples of zilzul as an operative factor in the book of Bereishit, see my Equality Lost: Essays in Torah Commentary, Halacha and Jewish Thought (Urim, 1999),Chap. 1. For more on the weekly Torah readings, see my forthcoming New Interpretations on the Parsha, to be published this fall by Ktav.

2. 15:3.

3. 1:5. Bereishit Rabbah itself brings this explanation, and see Matnot Kehunah, ad loc.