The Bible doesn't offer much detail. But the Jewish tradition, rich with stories and interpretations, fills in the gaps, painting a vivid picture of their struggle, their sorrow, and ultimately, their path toward repentance.
According to Ginzberg's masterful retelling in Legends of the Jews, Adam and Eve, banished from Paradise, were utterly lost. They built a simple hut and spent seven days in profound grief, mourning the loss of their perfect existence. Imagine the despair, the regret, the gnawing hunger.
Driven by necessity, they ventured out in search of food, but the world outside Eden was harsh and unforgiving. Adam, remembering the delicacies of the Garden, searched in vain for anything similar. He found nothing. Eve, overwhelmed by guilt, even suggested that Adam kill her, believing that God’s wrath was directed at him because of her. Adam, of course, refused.
Nine long days passed. All they could find was food fit for animals. Can you picture it? The first humans, created in God’s image, reduced to scavenging for scraps.
Finally, Adam proposed a radical solution: repentance. "Let us do penance," he said, "mayhap the Lord God will forgive us and have pity on us, and give us something to sustain our life." But knowing Eve's physical weakness, he devised separate penances for each of them.
He instructed Eve to stand in the Tigris River, the water reaching her neck, for thirty-seven days, maintaining complete silence. "Let no speech issue forth from thy mouth," he told her, "for we are unworthy to supplicate God, our lips are unclean by reason of the forbidden fruit of the tree."
Adam, meanwhile, chose an even more arduous path. He would stand in the Jordan River for forty days, fasting. He waded into the Jordan, the water up to his neck, and cried out: "I adjure thee, O thou water of the Jordan! Afflict thyself with me, and gather unto me all swimming creatures that live in thee… Not they have sinned, only I alone!" Immediately, the creatures of the Jordan gathered around him, and the river itself ceased to flow.
This act of profound contrition, this willingness to suffer for his transgression, did not go unnoticed. But it also caught the attention of a familiar adversary: Satan.
The Legends of the Jews tell us that Satan, fearing that God might forgive Adam and Eve, attempted to sabotage their penance. He appeared to Eve, disguised as an angel, claiming that God had heard their prayers and accepted their repentance. He urged her to leave the river and offered her the sustenance she had enjoyed in Paradise.
Weakened and vulnerable, Eve succumbed to Satan's deception. He led her to Adam, who immediately recognized the trickery. "O Eve, Eve, where now is thy penitence?" he cried. "How couldst thou let our adversary seduce thee again—him who robbed us of our sojourn in Paradise and all spiritual joy?"
Eve, realizing her mistake, turned on Satan, demanding to know why he relentlessly pursued them. With a deep sigh, Satan confessed that his jealousy of Adam, who had been given a higher place in creation, was the reason for his fall and his subsequent desire to destroy Adam.
Hearing this, Adam prayed to God to remove Satan, his adversary. Satan disappeared, and Adam continued his penance in the Jordan. As he stood in the river, Adam noticed the days growing shorter. He feared that the world was being plunged into darkness as punishment for his sin. He spent eight days in prayer and fasting, begging for forgiveness. When the days began to lengthen again after the winter solstice, he rejoiced and established a yearly celebration of both periods – the time of diminishing light and the return of light. Legends of the Jews suggests this is the origin of pagan winter festivals, a fascinating repurposing of a primal human experience.
The tradition continues, telling us that Adam also experienced profound fear when he first witnessed the setting sun. He believed that the world was being consumed by darkness because of his sin. He spent the entire night in tears. But when the sun rose again, he understood it was the natural order and offered a sacrifice to God: a unicorn whose horn was created before its hoofs, on the very spot where the altar in Jerusalem would later stand.
What does this all mean? Beyond being a captivating story, Adam's repentance offers a powerful message about human fallibility, the importance of taking responsibility for our actions, and the enduring possibility of redemption. It reminds us that even after making terrible mistakes, like Adam and Eve, we have the capacity to turn towards God, to seek forgiveness, and to ultimately find our way back to the light.
Cast out of Paradise, Adam and Eve built a hut for themselves, and for seven days they sat in it in great distress, mourning and lamenting. At the end of the seven days, tormented by hunger, they came forth and sought food. For seven other days, Adam journeyed up and down in the land, looking for such dainties as he had enjoyed in Paradise. In vain; he found nothing. Then Eve spoke to her husband: "My lord, if it please thee, slay me. Mayhap God will then take thee back into Paradise, for the Lord God became wroth with thee only on account of me." But Adam rejected her plan with abhorrence, and both went forth again on the search for food. Nine days passed, and still they found naught resembling what they had had in Paradise. They saw only food fit for cattle and beasts. Then Adam proposed: "Let us do penance, mayhap the Lord God will forgive us and have pity on us, and give us something to sustain our life." Knowing that Eve was not vigorous enough to undergo the mortification of the flesh which he purposed to inflict upon himself, he prescribed a penance for her different from his own. He said to her: "Arise, and go to the Tigris, take a stone and stand upon it in the deepest part of the river, where the water will reach as high as thy neck. And let no speech issue forth from thy mouth, for we are unworthy to supplicate God, our lips are unclean by reason of the forbidden fruit of the tree. Remain in the water for thirty-seven days." For himself Adam ordained forty days of fasting, while he stood in the river Jordan in the same way as Eve was to take up her stand in the waters of the Tigris. After he had adjusted the stone in the middle of the Jordan, and mounted it, with the waters surging up to his neck, he said: "I adjure thee, O thou water of the Jordan! Afflict thyself with me, and gather unto me all swimming creatures that live in thee. Let them surround me and sorrow with me, and let them not beat their own breasts with grief, but let them beat me. Not they have sinned, only I alone!" Very soon they all came, the dwellers in the Jordan, and they encompassed him, and from that moment the water of the Jordan stood still and ceased from flowing. The penance which Adam and Eve laid upon themselves awakened misgivings in Satan. He feared God might forgive their sin, and therefore essayed to hinder Eve in her purpose. After a lapse of eighteen days he appeared unto her in the guise of an angel. As though in distress on account of her, he began to cry, saying: "Step up out of the river, and weep no longer. The Lord God hath heard your mourning, and your penitence hath been accepted by Him. All the angels supplicated the Lord in your behalf, and He hath sent me to fetch you out of the water and give you the sustenance that you enjoyed in Paradise, and for which you have been mourning." Enfeebled as she was by her penances and mortifications, Eve yielded to the solicitations of Satan, and he led her to where her husband was. Adam recognized him at once, and amid tears he cried out: "O Eve, Eve, where now is thy penitence? How couldst thou let our adversary seduce thee again—him who robbed us of our sojourn in Paradise and all spiritual joy?" Thereupon Eve, too, began to weep and cry out: "Woe unto thee, O Satan! Why strivest thou against us without any reason? What have we done unto thee that thou shouldst pursue us so craftily?" With a deep-fetched sigh, Satan told them how that Adam, of whom he had been jealous, had been the real reason of his fall. Having lost his glory through him, he had intrigued to have him driven from Paradise. When Adam heard the confession of Satan, he prayed to God: "O Lord my God! In Thy hands is my life. Remove from me this adversary, who seeks to deliver my soul to destruction, and grant me the glory he has forfeited." Satan disappeared forthwith, but Adam continued his penance, standing in the waters of the Jordan for forty days. While Adam stood in the river, he noticed that the days were growing shorter, and he feared the world might be darkened on account of his sin, and go under soon. To avert the doom, he spent eight days in prayer and fasting. But after the winter solstice, when he saw that the days grew longer again, he spent eight days in rejoicing, and in the following year he celebrated both periods, the one before and the one after the solstice. This is why the heathen celebrate the calends and the saturnalia in honor of their gods, though Adam had consecrated those days to the honor of God. The first time Adam witnessed the sinking of the sun be was also seized with anxious fears. It happened at the conclusion of the Sabbath, and Adam said, "Woe is me! For my sake, because I sinned, the world is darkened, and it will again become void and without form. Thus will be executed the punishment of death which God has pronounced against me!" All the night he spent in tears, and Eve, too, wept as she sat opposite to him. When day began to dawn, he understood that what he had deplored was but the course of nature, and he brought an offering unto God, a unicorn whose horn was created before his hoofs, and he sacrificed it on the spot on which later the altar was to stand in Jerusalem.
