“And to Adam He said: Because you heeded your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree that I commanded you, saying: You shall not eat from it, the ground is cursed on your account; in suffering you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17). “And to Adam He said: Because you heeded your wife’s voice” – Rabbi Simlai said: She approached him persuasively. She said to him: ‘What do you think, that I will die and another Eve will be created for you?
“There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). What do you think, that I will die and you will sit alone? “He did not create it for emptiness; He formed it to be inhabited”’ (Isaiah 45:18). The Rabbis say: She began sobbing at him with her voice.
That is what is written: “And to Adam He said...” “Because you heeded your wife’s words” is not written here, but rather, “your wife’s voice.” “And ate of the tree” – this supports what Rabbi Abba of Akko said, that it [the tree of knowledge] was a citron tree.35The taste of the citron tree is similar to its fruit. Thus, by eating the fruit, it was as if Adam “ate from the tree” itself.
“That I commanded you, saying” – what is “saying”?36Literally, “to say.” [Adam had been told] to warn the animals, the beasts, and the birds.37Adam had been commanded “to say” to all the animals that they must not eat of the forbidden fruit. Not only did you not warn them, but you gave it to them and they ate. “The ground is cursed on your account” – it will bring forth for you cursed things, e.g., gnats, fleas, and flies.
Let it, then, produce a camel for him.38That would be a much larger pest. Rabbi Yitzḥak said: He, too, could derive benefit from that, as he could sell it and benefit from its proceeds.