Their Eyes Opened and the Curses After the Sin

"And the eyes of both of them were opened" (Genesis 3:7). Were they then blind? It is like a townsman who passed before the shop of a glazier, who had before him a basket full of cups and fine vessels; the townsman swung his staff and broke them. The glazier rose and seized him and said: I know I will gain nothing from you, but come and see how many good things you have destroyed. So He showed them how many generations they had destroyed. "That they were naked" - even the one commandment that was in their hand, they were stripped of it. "And they sewed a fig leaf" - the leaf that brought a pretext [to'anah] into the world. Rabbi Yitzchak said: You ruined your deeds; take thread and sew. "And they made themselves girdles" - it does not say "girdle" but "girdles": belts, sashes, sheets, and for the woman, ornaments and head-coverings. Ten descents did the Holy One, blessed be He, descend upon the earth: one in the Garden of Eden, one in the generation of the Dispersion, one in Sodom, one at the bush, one in Egypt, one at Sinai, one in the cleft of the rock, two in the Tent of Meeting, and one in the time to come. One in the Garden of Eden, as it is written, "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden," and it is written, "My beloved went down to his garden" (Song of Songs 6:2). He sat in judgment and said to him: Why did you flee from before Me? He said before Him: "For I am naked" - of deeds, of action, and of command. What was the garment of the first man? A skin of nail [a luminous covering] and a cloud of glory covering him. And when he ate the fruit, the nail-skin was stripped away and the cloud of glory departed from him, and he saw himself naked. He brought the three of them and laid upon them a decree of judgment of nine curses and death. He cast down Samael and his company from the place of their holiness in heaven, and cut off the legs of the serpent, and cursed it more than all the beasts, decreeing that it shed its skin and suffer once every seven years in great pain, and that it crawl on its belly upon the ground, its food turning to dust in its innards, the venom of vipers in its mouth, and He set enmity between her offspring and the woman, that they should crush its head; and after every curse, death. And He gave the woman nine curses and death: the affliction of menstrual blood and the affliction of the blood of virginity, the affliction of pregnancy in the womb, the affliction of childbirth, the affliction of raising children; she covers her head like a mourner, grows her hair like Lilith, uncovers her head only at night, has her ear bored like a perpetual servant, serves her husband like a maidservant, and is not trusted in testimony; and after all these, death. And He brought forth judgments upon Adam, nine curses and death: He shortened his strength, shortened his stature, the impurity of a flux, the impurity of an emission, the impurity of marital relations; he sows wheat and reaps thorns, his food is the grass of the field like an animal, his bread comes in worry and his nourishment in sweat; and after all these, death. If Adam sinned, how did the earth sin? In that it did not tell of the deed. And when a person sins, it withholds its fruits, as it is said, "Cursed is the ground because of you."