Parshat Bereshit6 min read

Abraham Saw Who Was Standing Between Adam and Eve in Eden

Adam and Eve stood embracing under the tree, and something with a man's hands and twelve wings stood between them, holding out the grapes.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Look Again in the Picture
  2. The Man Was the Size of the World
  3. The One Standing Between Them
  4. Why Did You Give Him That Power
  5. Every Tree Shut Its Door
  6. The Tree Was Never Named
Abraham Saw Who Was Standing Between Adam and Eve in Eden Click for full size

Look Again in the Picture

The whole world was laid out under Abraham like a painting, and he had already looked at all of it once.

"Now look again in the picture," the voice said. "See who it is that seduced Eve, and what the fruit of the tree is. Then you will know what is to come, and how it will come, for your seed among the peoples at the end of the days."

His eyes went to the side of the Garden.

The Man Was the Size of the World

There was a man there so tall and so wide that Abraham had no measure to put against him, and nothing in the picture to compare him to.

This was Adam before anything happened to him, when his body still ran from one end of the world to the other and had not yet been cut down. He was holding a woman who came close to his shape and his size, and she was holding him back. The two of them stood under one of the trees of Eden with their arms around each other.

The fruit hanging over them looked like a bunch of grapes on a vine.

The One Standing Between Them

Behind the tree there was something in the form of a serpent that had a man's hands and a man's feet, and wings coming off its shoulders. Six on the right side. Six on the left.

It was holding the grapes out to them in its hands, and the man and the woman with their arms around each other were eating.

Abraham could not read what he was looking at. "Who are these two holding each other? Who is this between them? What is the fruit they are eating, Eternal and Mighty One?"

"This is the world of men. This is Adam, and this is their desire upon the earth, this is Eve. And he who is between them is ungodliness, their beginning on the road to ruin. This is Azazel."

The name landed on a man who had met it before. On the day of his sacrifice, when the birds came down on the carcasses, one of them had spoken to Abraham with a voice and told him to leave the holy heights and run. That thing had a history, and Abraham was now watching the first entry in it.

Why Did You Give Him That Power

He did not stay quiet.

"Eternal and Mighty One, why have You given such a one the power to destroy the generations of men in their works upon the earth?"

The answer came back without any softening in it. "Over those who will to do evil, and how I have hated it in those who do it, over them I gave him power, and to be loved by them."

Loved. Not feared, not obeyed. Abraham pressed again, because the answer left a hole in it big enough to fall through. Why arrange things so that evil would be wanted in the hearts of men at all, when the wanting is the thing that angers You?

Every Tree Shut Its Door

Nobody who came after could agree on what the fruit had been.

Rabbi Meir said it was wheat, because a man with no sense is one who never ate wheat bread in his life. Asked how wheat could be called a tree, he said the wheat of Eden went up like the cedars of Lebanon. Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai said grapes, clusters of bitterness that brought bitterness into the world. Rabbi Abba of Akko said a citron, since the verse calls the tree itself good for eating, and only the citron has wood that tastes the way its fruit tastes. Rabbi Yosei said figs, and he argued it from what came next.

Because when Adam was put out, he was naked, and he went from tree to tree in the garden asking for leaves.

Every one of them shut against him. Here is the thief who cheated his Maker, they said. Keep your arrogant foot off me. You may not take one leaf from me. He went the whole round of them, the tall ones and the low ones, and not a single tree in Eden would cover him.

The fig opened. The one whose fruit he had eaten was the only one that let him in, the way a prince's son thrown out of the palace for going with a maidservant knocks at every door in the servants' quarter and is refused at all of them until he reaches hers, and she opens it. He sewed her leaves together and put them on.

The Tree Was Never Named

Which fig, then. Rabbi Avin said the kind called berat sheva, because it brought the world its seven days of mourning. Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin said berat elita, because it brought the world weeping.

And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said none of them would ever know, because God has never told any man which tree it was and never will.

His reason was a law about an animal. When a beast is killed alongside the person it was used by, the beast has done nothing at all, and it dies anyway so that it will not walk through the market afterward with people pointing and saying there goes the animal that got so-and-so stoned. If heaven guards the name of a woman that far, and she sinned, then Adam gets at least that much.

So the tree stands somewhere in the story with no name on it, and nobody has ever been able to walk up and point.

AbrahamAdam EveAzazelGarden Of EdenSerpentApocrypha
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From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Apocalypse of Abraham XXIIIApocalypse of Abraham

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.G. H. Box and J. I. Landsman public-domain English translation (1918) · Public Domain

"Now look again in the picture," God said. "See who it is that seduced Eve and what is the fruit of the tree. You will know what shall be and how it shall be for your seed among the people at the end of the days of the age."

Abraham looked into the picture, and his eyes were drawn to the side of the Garden of Eden.

He saw a man, vast in height and terrifying in breadth, incomparable in appearance. This was Adam, whose stature, when first created, reached from one end of the world to the other. Beside him was a woman, Eve, equal to him in aspect and form. They were embracing, standing under a tree of the Garden, and the fruit of the tree looked like a cluster of grapes on a vine.

Behind the tree stood a figure in the form of a serpent, but this was no ordinary snake. It had hands and feet like a man's, and wings on its shoulders, six on the right side and six on the left. Twelve wings. This was Azazel himself, riding the serpent, using it as his instrument, the same role the tradition elsewhere assigns to Sammael (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 13).

The serpent-figure held the grapes of the tree in its hands, and both Adam and Eve were eating.

Abraham asked: "Who are these two embracing? Who is the one between them? What is the fruit they are eating?"

God answered: "This is the human world. This is Adam, and this is their desire upon the earth. This is Eve. But he who is between them represents ungodliness, the beginning of their path to perdition. He is Azazel."

"O Eternal, Mighty One! Why have you given him power to destroy the generation of men in their works upon the earth?"

God's answer was chilling in its precision: "Those who will to do evil, and how much I hated it in those who do it, over them I gave him power, and they came to love him."

Abraham pushed further, to the hardest question: "Why have you willed that evil should be desired in the hearts of men, since you are angered over the very thing you yourself permitted?"

The question of theodicy, asked before the throne of heaven, in the presence of the divine picture where everything was laid out from the beginning.

Full source
Bereshit Rabbah 15:7Bereshit Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

An apple? Maybe… but our tradition offers a whole orchard of possibilities! The rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), in Bereshit Rabbah 15, really sink their teeth into this question.

Rabbi Meir, surprisingly, suggests it was wheat. Wheat! He argues that knowledge and intelligence are connected to eating wheat bread. "When a person does not have knowledge," he says, "people say: That person has never eaten wheat bread in all his days. That the very grain that sustains us could also be the key to understanding. Rabbi Shmuel bar Yitzḥak even asks Rabbi Ze’eira, "Is it possible that it was wheat?" And Rabbi Ze’eira answers in the affirmative, explaining that the wheat in Eden grew to immense heights, like the cedars of Lebanon. So tall, it could be considered a tree!

This idea connects to a debate between Rabbi Neḥemya and the Rabbis, concerning the blessing over bread, "who brings forth [hamotzi] bread from the earth." Rabbi Neḥemya believes that finished bread grew directly from the ground in Eden, a bounty lost after the sin. The Rabbis, on the other hand, envision this happening in the Messianic future. As it says in (Psalms 72:16), "There will be bread [pisat] from grain upon the earth." It’s a beautiful vision of abundance and ease.

Then there's the curious case of the lefet, which means turnip. Rabbi Ḥanina bar Yitzḥak and Rabbi Shmuel bar Ami debate: Was the turnip once bread [lo pat]? Or will it be bread [lo pat] in the future? It's a playful, thought-provoking exploration of loss and redemption.

But wheat isn't the only contender. Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai puts forth grapes, citing (Deuteronomy 32:32): "Their grapes are grapes of poison, clusters of bitterness for them" – those clusters brought bitterness to the world. A powerful image of the consequences of disobedience.

Rabbi Abba of Akko champions the citron. He points out that the Torah says the tree "was good for eating," implying the tree itself had a good taste. And, he asks, which tree has wood that tastes like its fruit? Only the citron! It’s a clever bit of reasoning.

And Rabbi Yosei? He suggests figs. His argument is contextual: Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover themselves after the sin. It's like the story of a prince's son who sins with a maidservant. No other maidservant would take him in except the one he had sinned with. Similarly, after the sin, only the fig tree offered its leaves to Adam. As Rabbi Berekhya says, "Here is the thief who deceived his Creator." The other trees wouldn’t allow him to use their leaves to clothe himself!

Rabbi Avin specifies the berat sheva species of fig, as it brought seven [sheva] days of mourning to the world – because the sin introduced death and mourning into the world. Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin, in the name of Rabbi Elazar, suggests the berat elita species, as it brought weeping [elita] to the world.

But the most intriguing idea comes from Rabbi Azarya and Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon, in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: that God never revealed, and never will reveal, the identity of that tree. Why? They bring up the law in (Leviticus 20:16) about bestiality: the animal is killed so it won't be paraded through the marketplace, reminding everyone of the sin. If God is concerned about the dignity of descendants, how much more so is He concerned about the dignity of Adam himself!

So, we're left with a multitude of possibilities, and perhaps, ultimately, the question itself is more important than the answer. Maybe the point isn't what the fruit was, but what it represents: the human capacity for choice, the allure of forbidden knowledge, and the enduring consequences of our actions. What do you think?

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