Who Told You and Adam Blames the Woman

"Who told you?" It is like a woman who came to borrow vinegar and entered the house of a scholar's wife. He said to her: What does your husband do with you? She said to him: He does all good with me, except for this one barrel, which is full of snakes and scorpions, that he does not let me have authority over. He said to her: All his finery is inside it, and he wishes to marry another woman and give it to her. She reached her hand inside, and the snakes began to bite her. When her husband came, he heard her voice crying out. He said to her: Perhaps you touched that barrel? "Have you eaten from the tree about which I commanded you?" "And the man said, The woman whom You gave to be with me" (Genesis 3:12). Four there are upon whose jug the Holy One, blessed be He, knocked, and found it a vessel full of urine: Adam, as it is said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me"; Cain, as it is said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9); Balaam, "Who are these men with you?" "And Balak son of Tzippor said" (Numbers 22:9); Hezekiah, "From where did these men come to you? And he said, From a far country they came." But Ezekiel was found more learned than all of them, as it is said, "Can these bones live? And he said, O Lord GOD, You know" (Ezekiel 37:3). It is like a bird that was placed in a hunter's hand. He met a man and said to him: This one in my hand, what is it, alive or dead? He said to him: If you wish, alive; if you wish, dead. "She gave me from the tree and I ate." It does not say here "and I ate" [past] but "and I eat" - I ate and I will eat. The first man was not banished from the Garden of Eden until he blasphemed and reviled, as it is said, "He hoped for grapes and it yielded" and so on. "The serpent enticed me" (Genesis 3:13) - he made me liable and deceived me and incited me, as in the manner of one who says, "No enemy shall exact upon him" (Psalms 89:23); "he made me liable," as in the manner of one who says, "When you lend to your fellow" (Deuteronomy 24:10); "he deceived me," as in the manner of one who says, "Let not Hezekiah deceive you." Our Rabbis taught: One may not place an animal in the inns of the Samaritans, because they are suspected of bestiality, and even females beside females, because the Samaritans are found beside the wives of their fellows. For Rabbi Yochanan said: When the serpent came upon Eve, it cast filth into her. Israel, who stood at Mount Sinai, their filth ceased; the Samaritans, who did not stand at Mount Sinai, their filth did not cease.