It all starts, according to some traditions, with a clash of egos, a refusal to bow, and a trial of wit gone wrong.
The Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, gives us a fascinating glimpse into this cosmic drama. Adam, newly formed and brimming with God-given qualities, stirred envy among the angels. They even tried to incinerate him! But God intervened, establishing peace... except for one very important angel.
Satan, the most glorious of the angels, adorned with twelve wings (twice the number of the others!), harbored a deep-seated jealousy. When God commanded all the angels to bow before Adam, Satan refused. "Why should we, created from the splendor of the Shekinah (the divine presence)," he argued, "bow down to a creature fashioned from mere dust?" It's a question of pride, of origins, of who deserves honor.
God, in his infinite wisdom, responded that this "dust" possessed more wisdom than Satan. A challenge was laid: a battle of wits. God would present animals to both Satan and Adam. If Satan could name them, Adam would bow to him. If not… well, Satan would have to acknowledge Adam's superiority.
The story goes that Satan faltered immediately. He couldn’t name the ox, the cow, the camel, or the donkey. Adam, however, with God's subtle prompting (the first letter of the animal's name was echoed in the question), succeeded.
But Satan, rather than gracefully accepting defeat, erupted in defiance. He refused to bow, declaring he would "exalt my throne above the stars of God." This act of rebellion, this ultimate act of pride, led to his expulsion from heaven. God cast Satan and his followers down to Earth, marking the beginning of the eternal conflict between Satan and humanity. Talk about a fall from grace!
Now, let's shift gears to the creation of woman. This part of the story is equally fascinating, filled with mythology and… well, some rather pointed opinions!
When Adam first opened his eyes, he was amazed by the world. But the creatures, in turn, were so awestruck by Adam that they mistook him for their creator! Adam quickly corrected them, directing their praise to God. Even the angels, for a moment, thought Adam was the lord of all, until God put him to sleep, revealing his mortality.
Why the sleep? To create Eve, of course! But the earth trembled at the prospect, fearing it couldn't sustain Adam's descendants. God reassured it, promising to share the burden. This is why, according to this tradition, God takes the night, and the earth takes the day – a partnership in sustaining life.
Before Eve, however, there was Lilith.
Lilith, created from the same dust as Adam, demanded equality. She wouldn’t accept a subservient role. When she pronounced the Ineffable Name (a secret name of God, possessing immense power), she flew away, abandoning Adam. Adam complained, and God sent angels to retrieve her. They found her by the Red Sea, threatening to kill a hundred of her demon children each day if she refused to return. But Lilith preferred the punishment to submission.
According to the lore, Lilith takes revenge by harming newborn babies—boys on their first night, girls for the first twenty days. The only protection? An amulet bearing the names of the angels who tried to capture her. It’s a chilling tale, a glimpse into ancient anxieties about childbirth and the power of female independence.
Finally, we arrive at Eve. God, mindful of Lilith's story, took Eve from Adam's rib. This, according to this tradition, ensured a more lasting bond – "only when like is joined unto like the union is indissoluble." Adam was originally created with two faces, which were then separated to create Eve.
Before creating Eve, God supposedly declared, "I will not make her from the head… not from the eye… not from the ear…" and so on, detailing all the potential flaws he wanted to avoid. Yet, despite his precautions, the story goes on to list examples of women exhibiting each of those very flaws! There’s a certain… shall we say… unevenness in the portrayal, reflecting perhaps the cultural biases of the time.
The wedding of Adam and Eve was a grand affair. God himself adorned Eve as a bride, and the angels served as attendants. They danced and played music in ten bridal chambers made of gold, pearls, and precious stones! Adam renamed himself Ish (man) and called his wife Ishah (woman). The story says that God added His own name, Yah, to their names—Yod to Ish and He to Ishah—symbolizing divine protection as long as they followed God's commandments. Stray from the path, and God's name would be withdrawn, leaving only Esh—fire—consuming them.
These stories, though ancient, still resonate. They speak of pride, rebellion, the complexities of relationships, and the eternal struggle between good and evil. They invite us to ponder: what does it mean to be human? What are the consequences of our choices? And how do we navigate the intricate dance between free will and divine will?
The extraordinary qualities with which Adam was blessed, physical and spiritual as well, aroused the envy of the angels. They attempted to consume him with fire, and he would have perished, had not the protecting hand of God rested upon him, and established peace between him and the heavenly host. In particular, Satan was jealous of the first man, and his evil thoughts finally led to his fall. After Adam had been endowed with a soul, God invited all the angels to come and pay him reverence and homage. Satan, the greatest of the angels in heaven, with twelve wings, instead of six like all the others, refused to pay heed to the behest of God, saying, "Thou didst create us angels from the splendor of the Shekinah, and now Thou dost command us to cast ourselves down before the creature which Thou didst fashion out of the dust of the ground!" God answered, "Yet this dust of the ground has more wisdom and understanding than thou." Satan demanded a trial of wit with Adam, and God assented thereto, saying: "I have created beasts, birds, and reptiles, I shall have them all come before thee and before Adam. If thou art able to give them names, I shall command Adam to show honor unto thee, and thou shalt rest next to the Shekinah of My glory. But if not, and Adam calls them by the names I have assigned to them, then thou wilt be subject to Adam, and he shall have a place in My garden, and cultivate it." Thus spake God, and He betook Himself to Paradise, Satan following Him. When Adam beheld God, he said to his wife, "O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." Now Satan attempted to assign names to the animals. He failed with the first two that presented themselves, the ox and the cow. God led two others before him, the camel and the donkey, with the same result. Then God turned to Adam, and questioned him regarding the names of the same animals, framing His questions in such wise that the first letter of the first word was the same as the first letter of the name of the animal standing before him. Thus Adam divined the proper name, and Satan was forced to acknowledge the superiority of the first man. Nevertheless he broke out in wild outcries that reached the heavens, and he refused to do homage unto Adam as he had been bidden. The host of angels led by him did likewise, in spite of the urgent representations of Michael, who was the first to prostrate himself before Adam in order to show a good example to the other angels. Michael addressed Satan: "Give adoration to the image of God! But if thou doest it not, then the Lord God will break out in wrath against thee." Satan replied: "If He breaks out in wrath against me, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High!" At once God flung Satan and his host out of heaven, down to the earth, and from that moment dates the enmity between Satan and man.' WOMAN When Adam opened his eyes the first time, and beheld the world about him, he broke into praise of God, "How great are Thy works, O Lord!" But his admiration for the world surrounding him did not exceed the admiration all creatures conceived for Adam. They took him to be their creator, and they all came to offer him adoration. But he spoke: "Why do you come to worship me? Nay, you and I together will acknowledge the majesty and the might of Him who hath created us all. 'The Lord reigneth,'" he continued, "'He is apparelled with majesty.'" And not alone the creatures on earth, even the angels thought Adam the lord of all, and they were about to salute him with "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts," when God caused sleep to fall upon him, and then the angels knew that he was but a human being. The purpose of the sleep that enfolded Adam was to give him a wife, so that the human race might develop, and all creatures recognize the difference between God and man. When the earth heard what God had resolved to do, it began to tremble and quake. "I have not the strength," it said, "to provide food for the herd of Adam's descendants." But God pacified it with the words, "I and thou together, we will find food for the herd." Accordingly, time was divided between God and the earth; God took the night, and the earth took the day. Refreshing sleep nourishes and strengthens man, it affords him life and rest, while the earth brings forth produce with the help of God, who waters it. Yet man must work the earth to earn his food. The Divine resolution to bestow a companion on Adam met the wishes of man, who had been overcome by a feeling of isolation when the animals came to him in pairs to be named. To banish his loneliness, Lilith was first given to Adam as wife. Like him she had been created out of the dust of the ground. But she remained with him only a short time, because she insisted upon enjoying full equality with her husband. She derived her rights from their identical origin. With the help of the Ineffable Name, which she pronounced, Lilith flew away from Adam, and vanished in the air. Adam complained before God that the wife He had given him had deserted him, and God sent forth three angels to capture her. They found her in the Red Sea, and they sought to make her go back with the threat that, unless she went, she would lose a hundred of her demon children daily by death. But Lilith preferred this punishment to living with Adam. She takes her revenge by injuring babes—baby boys during the first night of their life, while baby girls are exposed to her wicked designs until they are twenty days old. The only way to ward off the evil is to attach an amulet bearing the names of her three angel captors to the children, for such had been the agreement between them. The woman destined to become the true companion of man was taken from Adam's body, for "only when like is joined unto like the union is indissoluble." The creation of woman from man was possible because Adam originally had two faces, which were separated at the birth of Eve. When God was on the point of making Eve, He said: "I will not make her from the head of man, lest she carry her head high in arrogant pride; not from the eye, lest she be wanton-eyed; not from the ear, lest she be an eavesdropper; not from the neck, lest she be insolent; not from the mouth, lest she be a tattler; not from the heart, lest she be inclined to envy; not from the hand, lest she be a meddler; not from the foot, lest she be a gadabout. I will form her from a chaste portion of the body," and to every limb and organ as He formed it, God said, "Be chaste! Be chaste!" Nevertheless, in spite of the great caution used, woman has all the faults God tried to obviate. The daughters of Zion were haughty and walked with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes; Sarah was an eavesdropper in her own tent, when the angel spoke with Abraham; Miriam was a talebearer, accusing Moses; Rachel was envious of her sister Leah; Eve put out her hand to take the forbidden fruit, and Dinah was a gadabout. The physical formation of woman is far more complicated than that of man, as it must be for the function of child-bearing, and likewise the intelligence of woman matures more quickly than the intelligence of man. Many of the physical and psychical differences between the two sexes must be attributed to the fact that man was formed from the ground and woman from bone. Women need perfumes, while men do not; dust of the ground remains the same no matter how long it is kept; flesh, however, requires salt to keep it in good condition. The voice of women is shrill, not so the voice of men; when soft viands are cooked, no sound is heard, but let a bone be put in a pot, and at once it crackles. A man is easily placated, not so a woman; a few drops of water suffice to soften a clod of earth; a bone stays hard, and if it were to soak in water for days. The man must ask the woman to be his wife, and not the woman the man to be her husband, because it is man who has sustained the loss of his rib, and he sallies forth to make good his loss again. The very differences between the sexes in garb and social forms go back to the origin of man and woman for their reasons. Woman covers her hair in token of Eve's having brought sin into the world; she tries to hide her shame; and women precede men in a funeral cortege, because it was woman who brought death into the world. And the religious commands addressed to women alone are connected with the history of Eve. Adam was the heave offering of the world, and Eve defiled it. As expiation, all women are commanded to separate a heave offering from the dough. And because woman extinguished the light of man's soul, she is bidden to kindle the Sabbath light. Adam was first made to fall into a deep sleep before the rib for Eve was taken from his side. For, had he watched her creation, she would not have awakened love in him. To this day it is true that men do not appreciate the charms of women whom they have known and observed from childhood up. Indeed, God had created a wife for Adam before Eve, but he would not have her, because she had been made in his presence. Knowing well all the details of her formation, he was repelled by her. But when he roused himself from his profound sleep, and saw Eve before him in all her surprising beauty and grace, he exclaimed, "This is she who caused my heart to throb many a night!" Yet he discerned at once what the nature of woman was. She would, he knew, seek to carry her point with man either by entreaties and tears, or flattery and caresses. He said, therefore, "This is my never-silent bell!" The wedding of the first couple was celebrated with pomp never repeated in the whole course of history since. God Himself, before presenting her to Adam, attired and adorned Eve as a bride. Yea, He appealed to the angels, saying: "Come, let us perform services of friendship for Adam and his helpmate, for the world rests upon friendly services, and they are more pleasing in My sight than the sacrifices Israel will offer upon the altar." The angels accordingly surrounded the marriage canopy, and God pronounced the blessings upon the bridal couple, as the Hazan does under the Huppah. The angels then danced and played upon musical instruments before Adam and Eve in their ten bridal chambers of gold, pearls, and precious stones, which God had prepared for them. Adam called his wife Ishah, and himself he called Ish, abandoning the name Adam, which he had borne before the creation of Eve, for the reason that God added His own name Yah to the names of the man and the woman—Yod to Ish and He to Ishah—to indicate that as long as they walked in the ways of God and observed His commandments, His name would shield them against all harm. But if they went astray, His name would be withdrawn, and instead of Ish there would remain Esh, fire, a fire issuing from each and consuming the other.
