It's more than just offering forbidden fruit, according to our sages. Let's dive into Bereshit Rabbah 20, a fascinating exploration of the serpent's curse.
The passage begins by focusing on the phrase "Because you did this [zot]". Notice that zot is the feminine form of "this" in Hebrew. Rabbi Hoshaya cleverly points out: "It was because of this woman!" In other words, the serpent's actions were driven by lust for Eve herself. Was every action that you took not because of her? That's quite a charge!
Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon, quoting Rabbi Hoshaya, adds another layer: from the beginning of Genesis up to this point, God’s name appears seventy-one times. Why is that significant? This number, according to the text, indicates that the serpent was judged before a full Sanhedrin, the ancient Jewish high court consisting of seventy-one members. Talk about a serious trial!
And what was the sentence? Rabbi Hoshaya of Sikhnin, in the name of Rabbi Levi, suggests the serpent was cursed with leprosy! Those stone-shaped blotches we see on snakes? Those are, according to this interpretation, leprous signs. A pretty harsh punishment, wouldn't you say?
Rabbi Elazar then poses an interesting question. "Have you ever seen that after a person strikes another with a rod he then strikes him with a strap?" A strap inflicts less pain than a rod. The curse reads, "Cursed are you from all the animals... from all the beasts of the field." Why state the "lesser" curse (from the beasts) after the "greater" one (from the animals)?
The answer lies in the gestation periods of different creatures. Large domesticated animals gestate for nine to twelve months, while wild animals often gestate for only six months. This implies that animals are actually "worse off" than beasts in this particular aspect of life. The curse, therefore, is layered: being worse off than animals and even more cursed than the beasts. The text goes on to give specific gestation times for various creatures, ranging from dogs to elephants and, most notably, the serpent.
This leads to a fascinating, almost comical anecdote. A certain scholar, curious about the serpent's gestation period, captures some snakes, puts them in a barrel, feeds them, and waits. After seven years of this dedication, the scholar travels to Rome and asks Rabban Gamliel, a prominent leader, how long it takes a serpent to bear offspring. Rabban Gamliel doesn't know and is visibly embarrassed.
Later, Rabbi Yehoshua sees Rabban Gamliel looking unwell and asks what's wrong. Upon hearing the question, Rabbi Yehoshua immediately replies, "After seven years." How does he know? He reasons that since a dog, an unclean beast, gestates for fifty days, and unclean animals for twelve months, the serpent, being "cursed above all animals and all beasts," must have a gestation period seven times longer than the animal.
Rabban Gamliel, upon hearing this, shares the answer with the scholar. The scholar is devastated, realizing that after seven years of painstaking observation, someone else figured it out with a simple deduction! He laments, "After everything that I toiled for seven years, this man comes and presented it to me with a reed!" Meaning, so effortlessly.
This story highlights the different paths to knowledge – empirical observation versus logical deduction. But it also reminds us that sometimes, the answers are right in front of us, hidden within the text itself, waiting to be unlocked with a little bit of clever interpretation. And perhaps, it also reminds us that sometimes, even with all our efforts, someone else might figure it out first. What do you think? What does this tell us about the nature of knowledge itself?