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The Cat, the Dog, and Adam Before Eden Closed

When Adam left the Garden, the animals followed him out. What happened next was a quarrel the rabbis preserved for two thousand years.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Partnership Before Famine
  2. How the Dog Found a Door
  3. What the Dog Did and What the Cat Said
  4. Before Adam, the Mouse and the Cat

The Partnership Before Famine

Adam did not walk out of Paradise in silence, flanked only by Eve, the gate slamming shut behind them. The rabbinic sources tell a more crowded story. Adam left the Garden with animals at his heels, a household forming around him even before he reached the ordinary dust of the world, and within that household a politics immediately began.

The cat and the dog had been friends. This is stated plainly in the tradition. They were partners in the most formal sense: they shared what they had. When famine came, the dog proposed an orderly dissolution. The cat should go to Adam's house, where mice would keep her fed. The dog would find his own way. They swore an oath: never to share the same master again. A reasonable arrangement between reasonable creatures.

What neither of them anticipated was loneliness, or the strange moral arithmetic of desperation.

How the Dog Found a Door

The dog's first night away from the cat, he sheltered with the wolf. He did his duty there, barking at intruders in the dark. The intruders turned out to be wild animals who nearly killed him. He fled to the monkey, who refused him. He went to the sheep. He barked at the sound of approaching feet, and this time the warning that drove off the wolves also alerted the wolves to where the sheep were. The dog had saved his host and endangered his host with the same action.

He was cold. He was hungry. He had tried several arrangements and each of them had ended badly. He stood outside Adam's house and decided that no oath, sworn under better circumstances, could require him to starve to death.

What the Dog Did and What the Cat Said

He went in. Adam fed him. He slept by the fire. In the morning the cat was already there, watching. She had been there first, by the terms of their agreement. She was entitled to be there. The dog had no standing in this house.

The cat went to Adam with the complaint, and Adam, according to the Legends of the Jews, did not adjudicate. He let them both stay. Which meant the oath was broken and the question of who had broken it remained permanently unresolved.

The enmity between them, which the Legends accounts as originating in this moment, is the permanent quarrel of two creatures who had sworn something to each other and found that hunger and cold made the oath impossible to keep. Neither of them is entirely wrong. That is why the quarrel does not end.

Before Adam, the Mouse and the Cat

Kohelet Rabbah adds an earlier layer to the story. The mouse went to God with a complaint before any of this happened: "I and the cat are partners, but we have nothing to eat." God saw into the mouse's heart. "You are intriguing against your companion," God said. "You want only to devour her. As a punishment, she shall devour you."

The mouse protested. "What wrong have I done?" God's answer is the answer the whole animal world seems to be organized around: "I know what you intended." The intent was there before the act. The punishment followed the intention, not the completed harm.

This is the original condition behind the cat and mouse enmity, which is older than the dog's arrival and older than the oath and older than the famine. It goes back to what was in the mouse's heart when it stood before God, which is also what was in every heart before the Garden closed.

AdamCreationAnimalsGarden Of EdenMidrash
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Legends of the Jews 1:62Legends of the Jews

It wasn't always this way! According to the legends, these creatures weren’t born rivals. Their animosity, like so much else in this world, has a story, a reason... or rather, several reasons.

Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews recounts a fascinating tale. Originally, they were partners! But a certain… imbalance of power led to a divine intervention.

One day, the mouse went to God with a complaint: "I and the cat are partners, but we have nothing to eat!" Sounds innocent enough. But God saw into the mouse's heart. "Thou art intriguing against thy companion, only that thou mayest devour her," the Lord declared. "As a punishment, she shall devour thee." Ouch.

The mouse, naturally, protested: "O Lord of the world, wherein have I done wrong?" God's response is a powerful lesson in itself. "O thou unclean reptile, thou shouldst have been warned by the example of the moon, who lost a part of her light because she spake ill of the sun." There's a lot packed into that one sentence! It's a reminder that our actions, even our intentions, have consequences. As we find in Midrash Rabbah, speaking ill of others – especially those more powerful than us – can backfire spectacularly. The mouse's punishment? The cat would devour her instead.

But, the mouse pleaded: "O Lord of the world! Shall my whole kind be destroyed?" God, in his mercy, promised: "I will take care that a remnant of thee is spared." So, even in punishment, there's always a glimmer of hope.

The story takes a dark turn. In a fit of rage, the mouse bit the cat. And the cat, in turn, attacked the mouse with deadly force. Ever since, mice have lived in terror of cats, never daring to defend themselves. It's a harsh origin story, highlighting themes of betrayal, divine retribution, and the enduring consequences of our actions.

But what about the dog and the cat? Their story is different, yet equally compelling. Initially, they too were friends, even partners, sharing whatever meager food they could find. But hard times fell upon them. For three days, neither could find anything to eat. The dog, in desperation, suggested dissolving their partnership. The cat would go to Adam, where she might find mice, while the dog would seek his fortune elsewhere. But they made a solemn vow: never to share the same master.

The cat found a good home with Adam, thriving on the plentiful mice and earning Adam's favor. The dog, however, fared poorly. He sought shelter with a wolf, then a monkey, then a sheep, but each encounter ended in near-disaster or outright betrayal. He was homeless, hungry, and alone.

Finally, in desperation, the dog also went to Adam. Adam, recognizing the dog's usefulness in guarding his home from wild animals, welcomed him. But the cat, upon seeing the dog, was furious! She accused him of breaking his oath. Adam tried to mediate, assuring her that there was enough for both of them, but the cat was unappeasable. She couldn't live in the same house as a "thief" – a breaker of oaths.

The bickering became unbearable. Eventually, the dog left Adam and found refuge with Seth. He tried to reconcile with the cat, but to no avail. And so, the enmity between the first dog and the first cat was passed down to all their descendants, continuing to this very day.

What can we learn from these ancient tales? Perhaps it’s about the fragility of friendship, the importance of keeping our promises, or the way that even small acts of betrayal can have lasting consequences. Maybe it’s just a reminder that even the simplest relationships – between cats and mice, dogs and cats – have a history, a story worth telling. And who knows, maybe understanding these stories can help us understand a little bit more about ourselves, and the complex web of relationships that make up our own lives.

Full source
Kohelet Rabbah 1:2Kohelet Rabbah

Kohelet Rabbah turns to Eden, Adam at the Dawn of Creation.

Kohelet Rabbah, a rabbinic commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes (or Kohelet in Hebrew), opens a window into this fascinating area. It begins by pondering the verse, "who is like the wise man?" (Ecclesiastes 8:1). The Midrash answers that this refers to Adam, the first man. Why? Because, as (Ezekiel 28:12) says, "You are the culmination of perfection.” He was the pinnacle of creation. And, "who knows the meaning of a matter?", well, that was Adam too, as he named all the animals.

It gets even wilder. "The wisdom of a man illuminates his face," the verse continues. Rabbi Levi takes this literally. He says, and get this, the curve of Adam's heel outshone the sun! Rabbi Levi anticipates our disbelief. He explains it with a beautiful analogy: If you craft two exquisite trays, one for yourself and one for a guest, which would you make more beautiful? Naturally, the one for yourself! Adam, the Midrash implies, was created for the service of God, while the sun was created for the service of humanity. Therefore, shouldn't Adam's heel outshine the sun? And if his heel was that radiant, imagine his face!

Rabbi Ḥama bar Ḥanina adds another layer to this incredible image. He says that God prepared thirteen canopies for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We find support for this in (Ezekiel 28:13): "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your canopy: ruby, topaz and clear quartz, beryl, onyx, and chalcedony, sapphire, carbuncle, emerald and gold."

Now, the exact number of canopies becomes a point of rabbinic discussion. Reish Lakish says eleven. Other Rabbis say ten. The Midrash explains that they aren't really disagreeing about the verse itself. The one who said thirteen interprets the phrase "every precious stone was your canopy" as referring to three additional materials. The one who said eleven interprets it as one. And the one who said ten doesn't interpret it as any. These are interpretations of the same verse.

So, picture it: Adam and Eve, surrounded by unimaginable beauty, radiating light, dwelling in a paradise of precious stones. And yet…

After all this praise, after all this glory, God says to Adam, "as you are dust" (Genesis 3:19).

The Midrash then tells us that “the boldness of his face is changed.” Why? Because when God asks Adam if he ate from the forbidden tree (Genesis 3:12), Adam blames God for giving him Eve, who gave him the fruit. The Holy One, blessed be He, then changes the glory of Adam's countenance and expels him from Eden.

What a fall from grace! From radiant being, dwelling in paradise, to mortal man, cast out into the world. It makes you think. Even with immense gifts and blessings, our choices matter. Responsibility accompanies privilege. And perhaps, the story of Adam isn't just a story about the first man, but a mirror reflecting our own potential – and our own capacity for disappointment.

Full source
Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends, The Quarrel of the Cat and DogJewish Fairy Tales and Legends (Landa, 1919)

Adam once had a peaceful house, and the cat and dog nearly ruined it.

Landa's 1919 Jewish folktale begins in the childhood of the world, when Adam had named the animals and still ruled over them. Cat and dog were partners then. They shared food, shelter, secrets, and winter hunger. Then scarcity came, and the cat proposed a formal separation.

The serpent, called wise by the animals, supplies the legal idea. Cat and dog swear never to cross one another's path. The cat runs to Adam's house to catch mice. The dog wanders into hunger, wolves, wounds, and humiliation until he too reaches Adam's door without knowing the cat is inside.

Adam is grateful to both. The cat protects the house from mice. The dog guards it from danger. But the old oath poisons the peace. The cat insists the dog has violated the agreement. The dog says he came only because hunger drove him there.

Adam tries to reconcile them, then loses patience and says they look ready to quarrel forever. The tale treats that sentence like a decree. From then on, cat and dog carry the first broken partnership of Eden into every human house.

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