We all know the story of their shame and banishment, but the Rabbis of the Midrash saw something even deeper happening at that moment. Something that changed the very fabric of reality. to Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. This particular passage, Bereshit Rabbah 19, grapples with the verse "They heard the voice of the Lord God moving about in the garden with the day breeze; the man and his wife hid from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden" (Genesis 3:8). It’s a simple image, isn't it? God walking in the garden, Adam and Eve hiding. But the Rabbis, masters of close reading, noticed something peculiar.

The Hebrew word used here for "moving about" is mithalekh. Rabbi Ḥalfon points out that the word hilukh, related to mithalekh, can also refer to sound. He even finds another use of the word in Exodus 9:23, "And fire went [vatihalakh] earthward." So, is the verse saying God was walking? Or is something else going on?

Rabbi Abba bar Kahana offers a stunning interpretation. He notes that it doesn't say mehalekh (walking), but mithalekh, which he understands to mean "leaping up and ascending." What does that mean?

Here's where it gets really interesting. Rabbi Abba bar Kahana suggests that before the sin, the Divine Presence, the Shekhina, was present right here in the lower world, intimately connected to humanity. But when Adam sinned, the Shekhina began to withdraw. Not just metaphorically, but literally.

Imagine the Shekhina, the very essence of God’s presence, ascending, level by level, away from humanity. According to this midrash, with each subsequent sin—Cain's, the generation of Enosh, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the wickedness of Sodom, and the Egyptians—the Shekhina retreated further, rising to the first, second, third firmaments, and so on, until it reached the seventh!

A pretty bleak picture. Humanity’s actions drove God away. But the story doesn't end there.

Corresponding to those seven descents into sin, the midrash tells us, arose seven righteous individuals: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kehat, Amram, and Moses. Each one, a beacon of light, worked to bring the Shekhina back down. Abraham brought it down from the seventh to the sixth, Isaac from the sixth to the fifth, and so on, until finally, Moses brought the Shekhina all the way back down to earth!

Rabbi Yitzḥak adds a powerful closing thought. Quoting Psalm 37:29, "The righteous will inherit the earth and dwell [veyishkenu] upon it forever...", he asks, what about the wicked? Will they float in the air? No, he answers, the wicked prevented the Shekhina from dwelling, from shchen, on the earth. They disrupted the connection between the Divine and the mundane.

So, what does this all mean? It's a powerful reminder that our actions have cosmic consequences. Sin doesn't just harm us individually; it can create a distance between us and the Divine Presence. But equally important, it highlights the power of righteousness. Each act of kindness, each moment of connection, each effort to live a moral life, can help bring the Shekhina back down to earth, making the world a more sacred and connected place. It's a constant ebb and flow, a continuous dance between humanity and the Divine. And we all have a role to play.