Adam The Hermaphrodite

Alternatively, it may be understood according to Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar. For Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar said: the Holy One, blessed be He, created two faces in Adam, the first man, as it is said: "Behind and before You have formed me" (Psalms 139:5). "And the LORD God built the rib" (Genesis 2:22). Rav and Shmuel disagree. One said it was a face, and one said it was a tail. It is well according to the one who said it was a face - that is what is written, "Behind and before You have formed me." This accords with Rabbi Abbahu, for Rabbi Abbahu raised a contradiction: it is written, "Male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27), and it is written, "For in the image of God He made the man" (Genesis 9:6). How can this be? At first it arose in the divine thought to create two, and in the end only one was created.

אִי נָמֵי כִּדְרַבִּי יִרְמְיָה בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר. דְּאָמַר רַבִּי יִרְמְיָה בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר: דּוּ פַּרְצוּפִין בָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בָּאָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״אָחוֹר וָקֶדֶם צַרְתָּנִי״. ״וַיִּבֶן ה׳ אֱלֹהִים אֶת הַצֵּלָע״. רַב וּשְׁמוּאֵל: חַד אָמַר פַּרְצוּף. וְחַד אָמַר זָנָב. בִּשְׁלָמָא לְמַאן דְּאָמַר פַּרְצוּף — הַיְינוּ דִּכְתִיב ״אָחוֹר וָקֶדֶם צַרְתָּנִי״. כִּדְרַבִּי אֲבָהוּ, דְּרַבִּי אֲבָהוּ רָמֵי: כְּתִיב: ״זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בְּרָאָם״, וּכְתִיב ״כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים עָשָׂה אֶת הָאָדָם״! הָא כֵּיצַד? — בַּתְּחִלָּה עָלָה בְּמַחְשָׁבָה לִבְרֹאת שְׁנַיִם, וּלְבַסּוֹף לֹא נִבְרָא אֶלָּא אֶחָד.

Commentary

This myth acknowledges that God made a mistake, an idea that borders on heresy, since God is understood to intrinsically be perfect, and therefore incapable of a mistake. But the actual portrayal of God in the rabbinic texts presents God in a wide range of roles, ordering the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and then regretting it bitterly, or allowing Himself to be overruled by His children. Such a God is almost human, with a complex persona that includes the capacity of being contradictory or of making errors. See the Introduction, p. xlvi. What other errors has God made? Some regard the Shattering of the Vessels in the myth of the Ari to be another example of a divine error, since the vessels shattered before they reached their original destination. See "The Shattering of the Vessels and the Gathering of the Sparks," p. 122. This myth is a very clear parallel to a ancient story found in pre-Socratic sources, and most famously in Plato's Symposium 189a-190a, that every person seeks to find his or her other half. That myth is intended to explain the nature of Eros as a craving for completeness, since each person is only a part of what he or she once was. This mean-

Themes

Biblical References

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