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Bereishit 5761

Rabbi Yehuda Henkin

HaShem, G--d, took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and guard it. HaShem, G-d, instructed the man: "Eat from every tree of the garden. But do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because the day you eat from it you will certainly die." HaShem, G-d, said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will provide him suitable help." ...The man named all the animals, birds of the sky, and beasts of the field, but [G-d] didn't find suitable help for the man. HaShem, G-d, cast a trance on the man and he slept, and He took one of his ribs and closed flesh under it. HaShem, G-d, built the rib that He took from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. (Bereishit 2:15-18, 20-22)

Q. Wasn't woman already created in chapter one?

A. The biological female was created in chapter one- "He created them male and female" (Bereishit 1:27). Chapter two, by contrast, deals with the social and cultural woman. The two are not the same.(2)

Chapter two contains a remarkable chain of events. We would have expected G-d to make man and woman simultaneously or, at least, the one immediately after the other. Instead, G-d first made man and placed him in the garden (2:7,9,15). He warned man, "Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil(3)...." Only afterwards G-d said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will provide him suitable help."

The conclusion is inescapable: G-d created woman in response to His directive not to eat from the tree. Originally, man lacked nothing in the garden, but once confronted with G-d's commandment he had to overcome his curiosity and the temptation to taste forbidden fruit. He needed help.

At that point G-d said, "I will make him an ezer k'negdo." Translated as "suitable help," ezer k'negdo more precisely means "help equal to him," as in talmud Torah k'neged kulam, "the study of Torah is equal to all the commandments."(4) Why were man and woman created equal? She could have been made to bear children without having intellectual and moral qualities of her own. Were that the case, however, she could not help man follow G-d's word. "The man named all the animals...." but none was of any use in this regard, because man is not swayed by inferior beings. A beast can be a companion, but cannot make man fear G-d.

Instead, G-d created woman equal to man so that they could strengthen each other to observe His commandment. But (you may object), didn't woman cause man to sin, to eat from the Tree? Well, consider this: "G-d said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone.' " Was G-d mistaken?!

The Torah is telling us is that a wife may be good for man or not be good for man. Without her, however, the absence of good is preordained.

Notes

1. For an expanded treatment of the creation of man and woman and their relationship, see chap. 1 of my Equality Lost: Essays in Torah Commentary, Halacha, and Jewish Thought, Urim Publications, 1999.

2. Human intellect does not automatically result from physique, see Ramban's commentary on 1:26.

3. Or, "tree of deciding [what is] good and evil." Man was already able to distinguish objective truth from lies; the tree gave him the capacity to subjectively determine what was good and bad for him, often at the expense of truth. See my Chibah Yeteirah- Chidushim b'Peshat haTorah on 2:9.