On Growing Up
D'var
Torah: Shabbat B'reysheet
October 24, 2008
(I wrote and delivered this D'var Torah for my step-daughter Samara's Bat Mitzvah six years ago on this Shabbat B'reysheet. She is now spending the year after graduating High School and beginning Barnard College in Israel. For that Bat Mitzvah day, I spoke about a different way of regarding the behavior of the first female character of the Torah and about how we all grow up. This year with women so prominent in the presidential primary and election, I thought again of this teaching. For those of you who remember the D'var Torah well, my apologies for the repetition. For everyone else, I hope you find it meaningful.)
There is a story of a kid who grows up in a family and never says a word. (Very different from our Bat Mitzvah) The family is waiting and waiting for him to talk. His first words are "the soup is cold." His parents look at him and say for sixteen years, you don't say a word and the first thing you say is the soup is cold. He says, "Well, up until now everything was O.K." Some kids are precocious and talk at ten months and it takes some kids longer. Sixteen is a little slow.
What were the first words the first man said. The first time we have Adam actually speaking vayomer Adam, and we don't know quite how old he is, he speaks of Eve. He says "this one at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, this one shall be called Isha." He feels such a connection to Eve. Adam is Eesh and he calls her Isha. Our Etz Hayim commentary offers "Man's first recorded speech is a cry of elation at seeing the woman." It is a romantic and touching story.
I want to talk about that couple Adam and Eve and I want to talk about growing up; not so much when we talk, when we walk but how and when we come of age. That is what we celebrate with Samara today but it surely doesn't happen all at once. I ask all of the B'nai Mitzvah kids in my study to talk to me about what it means to them to become Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Young men invariably answer "It means I am a man." With that we begin our conversation. Whoever coined the phrase "Today I am a man" did us a major disservice. It doesn't capture the reality. One doesn't become a man/woman adult at one moment. I agree with that contemporary thinker and social commentator Brittany Spears in her song "Not yet a woman." It is a process and there are events that move us in that direction of growing and growing up.
I'd like to ask you to think of your own growing up and a time, times, an incident, incidents, that as you look back on them, they contributed to your growing up. What was the event? How old were you?
Let's go back to Adam and Eve. They made their first home in a garden. It was in a place called Eden. They had no cares and no worries. Everyone lived together in perfect peace and harmony. They ate the fruit of the trees and the animals ate the grass. Life was perfect! They could do anything they wanted, not that there was a whole lot to do. They could eat anything they wanted, not that the menu was that great, except for one tree that was in the middle of the garden. It was hard to avoid it. G-d told them specifically from the tree of knowledge good and evil don't eat! So what did they do? They ate! Was G-d surprised? Eve ate first. She shared the fruit with Adam. He ate too. It tasted good but?
Some religions have called this the original sin and all children born since have been tainted by this original sin. They also call this the fall of man. It took us no time to fall. By the second chapter of the first book of the whole Bible, we fell, and we can't get up. Judaism has a different take on this story. I want to have a different take on this story. Naomi Rosenthal, who spoke here a few years ago, a practicing psychotherapist who has long taught a Bible Class on Capitol Hill for senators and congressman (and G-d knows they need it), calls this in her book Wrestling with Angels the "rise of man" not the fall. And so now to my question.
Is Eve's behavior of disobeying G-d and eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge truly sinful?
Is it the original sin? Is there any other way of understanding Eve's behavior in eating of the tree of knowledge good and evil and sharing it with Adam?
Would the world be a better place today if Eve had not eaten? Or are we all better off that Eve ate and didn't eat alone and shared it with Adam?
Is Eve a villain or a heroine here or neither?
The incident that you recalled that prompted your growth, that pivotal moment of your life, was it a positive event, successful, happy, accomplishing or was it a negative event, some disappointment, conflict, failure, some not so civil disobedience. I confess that I recall more than one difficult time where I stumbled and at times paid a price but they were integral parts of my growth and growing up. It was my own eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
I don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden until they ate of the apple. The Torah doesn't give us any clue of time. I have long seen this moment as, in a way, their Bar and Bat Mitzvah. It's the beginning of their adolescence. You might sense this in other parts of the story. You don't even have to read between the lines. Just read the lines.
At a certain time in life we're ready to start making decisions and grow up. That means at times expressing the values we were taught and sometimes that means contesting the authority figures in life. We begin to exercise our free choice which is our uniquely human gift. We begin ingesting the fruit of the tree of knowledge good and evil. The truth is we're ambivalent about this. This is not the easiest time of our lives. We call this adolescence. Our Etz Hayim commentary cites "But it can also be seen as a painful but necessary graduation from the innocence of childhood to the problem-laden world of living as morally responsible adults."
If their act is a necessary part of growing up why does G-d forbid their eating of the fruit. Naomi Rosenblatt writes "G-d understands that He has endowed humans with the capacity to defy Him. But what is G-d's intent for His garden-keepers? Does He want them to remain blissfully ignorant and perpetually childlike? Or is He using this temptation to nudge them, like a mother bird, to venture forth from their secure nest?"
Is Eve villain or heroine? Eve, as the first woman deserves our thanks and our praise. She took us from the bliss and innocence of childhood to a path of growing up and giving life content and meaning. She took a risk, paid a price, she ate the fruit and her eyes were open and she became fully human. She shared that spirit with Adam and they grew up together.
Some religions have been based on the foundation of the clergy being the only ones with the knowledge and everyone else being kept in the dark. Not us! Judaism is based on the premise of all of us gaining the knowledge through study and individually knowing Tov V'ra - good and evil. Knowledge is our Eitz Hayim, our Tree of Life.
The story of Adam and Eve is not the story of the fall of man or humanity. It is the story of human growth from childhood to the challenges of adolescence that lead to adulthood. They sin only if growing upis a sin and growing up probably does involve some sins along the way but growing up is our mandate. It is exactly this process of growing and becoming that we celebrate today!
Shabbat Shalom,
