Genesis 2:2-3: The Filling and Emptying of Literal and Imaginative
Spaces
by Leah Angell
Sievers
Genesis
2:2-3 comprises the well-known story of Gods creation of the earth and the
story of Adam and Eve, and it also includes one of the Hebrew Bibles most
tense moments: when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. It is
puzzling that in these two chapters, beautiful, paradigmatic moments of
creation coexist with the dark, foreboding moments of Adam and Eves defiance
of God. If Gods intention is engrained
in the text, however, then it is crucial to explore why He chooses to marry
creationthe filling of the earth with lifeand sinthe momentary emptying of
the earth of goodness. Examining Genesis
2 and 3 through this pattern of filling and emptying demonstrates that although
sin does create new dilemmas in the world , those dilemmas are nevertheless
what create the momentum through which universal reparation can occur.
The
initial ripples of this momentum occur in Genesis 2:4-6, which offers a
description of Gods creation of heaven and earth; surprisingly, this
description portrays earth as a stark and barren land that is quite unlike the
newly green, recently sprouting earth
described in Genesis 1. The text of
Genesis 2 states that no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of
the field had yet sprouted,[1]
emphasizing that no vegetation exists but implying through repeated use of the
word yet that vegetation will
come. In this passage, the earth is
therefore expressed through words that simultaneously indicate both starkness
and bounty. The text gives a reason for
why the land is barren but full of potential: because the LORD God had not
sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil.[2] The earth is dry and unproductive because God
has neither brought it rain nor someone to work the land. At first these two reasons for the lands
barrenness seem logical. Of course the
land is unproductive if it is neither watered nor cared for. At the same time, the passage directly
indicates God as being responsible for whether or not there is rain for the
earth. Until God sends rain, there is no
rain. Mans presence on the earth and
ability to till the land are secondary to Gods decision about rain, for if it
does not rain, the plants do not grow, there is nothing for man to till, and
thus no need for man. Why would God
withhold rain from the land? Why wouldnt
he send rain right away to allow the land to flourish?
Perhaps
God withholds rain because he has a source of water in mind other than
rain. Genesis 2:6 states, but a flow
would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth. This passage suggests that the water that
will nourish the land does not come from above; instead, it comes from deep
within the earth, and it will spread out across the land. If the amount of water that comes up from the
earth is voluminous enough to cover its whole surface, then the well of water
is quite deep, and the water that comes from the well is enough to flood the
earth. Why would God choose to flood the
earth from within instead of bringing a rain, as the text originally suggests?
It
seems that God withholds rain because He specifically wants to water the earth
through a flood. There is a reason why God needs to bring
water out of the earth instead of out of the sky. In order to determine why God wants to do
this, it is helpful to remember that the well and the flood are discussed in
the text against the backdrop of a barren, dry earth that is waiting for water
and for man. God is working with two
opposites, then: the dry expanse of earth that the text describes first and the
deep, wet hidden well that the text describes second. The two opposites complement each other,
though, because the earth needs the water. Whether the water needs the earth remains to be seen, however, as there
is no hint that water is anxious to come to the surface in the way that the
earth seems anxious for the water. At
the very least, the text establishes a pattern here, a pattern of filling and
emptying. For example, the earth is
waiting to be filled with water and with man, while the water is being emptied
from the well in the earth. The world
that God is creating appears to have gaps in some areas that are waiting to be
filled from the richness of other areas, and He chooses to teach this lesson by
withholding rain in favor of the flood.
In
addition, here God is also using the flood to establish His authority. He promises rain but instead waters the earth
through the more drastic measure: flooding. God wants to demonstrate that He can be both moderate (rain) and
forceful (flooding) in how He manages the earth. Even though Adam and Eve do not yet exist and
cannot witness the extent of Gods powers, God needs to practice His
leadership. The reader too is involved
here, for she is forced to confront early on Gods seemingly contradictory
nature.
Maybe
God wants the earth to experience flooding and barrenness to find another way
of showing that good can come out of extremes. For example, Genesis 2:7 links back to Genesis 2: 4 and 2:5, revealing
the central reason why God leaves that dry, dusty gap in the earth at all
instead of immediately filling it with rain or floodwaters. The passage reads, the LORD God formed man
from the dust of the earth. He blew into
his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. God wants to make man out of the dust, so he
does not want the earth to be wet right away. There is simply something in the gritty, dry earth that God needs in
order to make Adam, and for some reason He wants Adam to become a living
being in this dry, empty context.
God
does not want Adam to live on a dry
earth, however, for Genesis 2:8 teaches that God creates the garden of Eden for
Adam. The creation of Adam is therefore
the catalyst for the earths enrichment: until God creates him, there is no
vegetation. Adam is the hinge upon which
the emptiness and fullness of the earth turns. As such, Adam serves as a repository for Gods hope for the world. God seems to want His earth to thrive, but he
is unwilling or unable to realize this desire without Adam. Once He creates Adam, He is free to be
creative with His design of the earth. Genesis 2:9 demonstrates the extent of Gods hopefulness and creativity
regarding the earth, for it explains that from the ground the LORD God caused
to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the
tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and
bad. God creates a garden that is not
only full of aesthetically beautiful plants and trees but also full of flora
that produce food to sustain Adamas long as he tills and tends it. In creating this kind of environment, God ensures
Adams happiness with his new home, and He ensures Adams survival. When God plants the trees of life and of
knowledge of good and bad, however, he also ensures that Adam will face
challenges. At the very least, for
example, it can be said that the mere existence of the tree of knowledge of
good and bad teaches Adam that there are differences in the world. Even if he does not understand good and bad,
the tree asks Adam to contemplate the idea of difference. The lingering question at this time is then
about why God wants Adam to learn about difference.
Much
of Genesis 2 tries to answer the question about why God cares that Adam learns
about difference. First, God wants Adam
to learn about difference as a way to foreshadow Adams expulsion from Eden. The text explains that Eden is connected to four other lands, so it
is therefore different from those other lands if only by comparison. As it is written, God creates a river [that]
issues from Eden
to water the garden, and then it divides and becomes four branches,[3]
each of which leads to a different region. The presence of these other regions implies that there are places to
live other than Eden, but it is unclear whether
Adam knows that the river in Eden
eventually splits into several branches. At the very least, God wants the reader
to know that Eden
is not isolated; it is connected to a world beyond itself. Most importantly, God uses the other regions
to serve as more examples of the significance of difference in His world.
Second,
God cares that Adam understands difference so that he will obey His
commands. When God places Adam in the
garden, He gives him specific directions, stating, Of every tree in the garden
you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must
not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.[4] Here God relies upon Adams being able to
discern the difference between certain trees, the difference between good and
evil, and the difference between life and death. If Adam cannot do this, then he cannot tell
the trees apart, cannot understand that good and evil are not the same, and
cannot understand that death is the opposite of his current status. Unless God gives Adam the capacity for
understanding difference, Adam has no way of learning difference without the
process of trial and error. The pattern
of fullness and emptiness in Genesis 2 appears again here, for there is no way
to know how fully God creates Adam. He
creates him from utter emptiness, but how full of knowledge does He make
him? If Adam is not particularly full of
knowledge, then he cannot follow Gods commands about the differences between
certain trees and from which ones he should or should not eat.
Third,
God cares that Adam learns about difference because He wants him to appreciate
Eve. Gods creation of Eve implies that
He thinks Adam needs help, for he says, It is not good for man to be alone; I
will make a fitting helper for him.[5] God decides that Adam should have a
companion, but He is clear that this new person is not just a companion but a
helper. Eve has a vocation before she
is even created: to help Adam. God
designs her to fill a void that He sees in Adams life , so she can be viewed
as someone who enriches and brings fullness to Adam and by extension to Eden. Eve possesses the greatest capacity to enrich
Adams life, for God creates her specifically to serve this purpose. It is Adam and not Eve, however, who names
all of these new creatures, demonstrating that it is he first and foremost who
understands difference enough to distinguish between creatures. This moment also demonstrates that when God
creates Adam, He imbues him with extraordinary creative powers. In so doing, God places the utmost confidence
in Adam, for in the act of naming each creature, Adam creates a vision and a
hope for ita tall order. Adams lack of a name himself means that his
creativity is even more extraordinary here: he is giving to others what he does
not have and does not know from personal experience. In not giving Adam a name yet asking him to
name the creatures, God challenges Adam to imagineto imagine what force lies
behind a nameand to fill others with specific identities when he is devoid of
one. Adam is merely an anonymous man,
but he is a bright, imaginative one, and it is within the context of this
intelligent, visionary Adam that Eve is created. If Adam is so wise and so uniquely creative,
then the fact of his needing a helper is even more curious. If he is so smart, why does he need
help? Curiously, God is emphasizing the
need for partnership over even the power of unique intelligence.
If
a man as unique and as powerful as Adam requires a particular kind of helper,
then God must send Adam the uniquely fitting partner: Eve. As Genesis 2:21-22 explains, God takes from
Adam a portion of his side to create his partner, Eve. Adam states confidently, This one at last/
Is bone of my bones/ And flesh of my flesh./ This one shall be called Woman,/
For from man was she taken.[6] Ironically, that which fills the gap in
Adams life comes from within Adam himself, just as earlier, the water that
ultimately floods the dry earth comes from that earth itself. God is again demonstrating that emptiness can
be filled by that which is hidden deep in the original source. For example, God fills an empty universe with
a world, the idea for which lies deep within Him. God fills the barren earth he creates with
water, which emerges from deep within the earth to fill the empty earth with
water and thus vegetation. God fills His
newly lush earth with Adam, whom He creates from deep within His mind and from
the primordial dustiness of the barren earth. God creates Eve from the depths of Adams body, thus positioning her as
the living fullness of what is now the emptiest part of Adam: an unspecified
amount of the side of his body.
Until
Adam and Eve meet the serpent and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, they live with no awareness of the emptiness that is inherent in
their relationship. They become one flesh,[7]
living happily as husband and wife, unaware that they are naked and seemingly
unaware of much other than their daily existence in the garden. When Eve speaks with the serpent, however, it
becomes clear that Adam and she are not leading a completely blissful, ignorant
existence. They have evidently been
discussing God and his rules for the garden, for Eve tells the serpent, We may
eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden. It is only about fruit of the tree in the
middle of the garden that God said: You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest
you die.[8] Eve has no way of knowing this information
unless Adam gives it her, for nowhere in the text thus far does God speak
directly to Eve. Evidently Adam recounts
Gods rules of the garden to Eve, but in what way does he deliver the
information? Does he present the
information to Eve as mere facts, as a dire warning, as gossip, or as a
plea? How fully does Adam address Eves
lack of knowledge about the garden?
Given
that Adam eats from the tree not directly but through Eve when she hands him a piece of the fruit that she is
eating, it can be said that perhaps he does not deliver the rules of the garden
to Eve as a warning or as a plea. It
even seems most likely that he is disrespectful of God, maybe telling Eve about
Gods rules in a way that suggests that they are rules about which God cannot
possibly be serious. In what other
context would Adam and Eve completely disregard Gods wishes?
The serpents wily ways mislead
Adam and Eve, so his role here cannot be dismissed.
Keeping the
textual pattern of filling and emptying in mind, the serpent represents an
abyss in the garden. The most clever
part of the serpents disguise is his form: the fact of his appearing to be a
serpent almost completely obscures the way that even a brief conversation with
him can cause one to fall into an abyss of denial of and disrespect for
God. The serpent represents the
cavernous, empty nature of a world without God, a world that Adam and Eve
cannot understand without the serpent/abyss as a foil, for they are born into a
world full of God. They do not know life
without Him, so while they should be more initially respectful of Him, they
also do not have a comparison by which to evaluate Him. The serpent provides this comparative
opportunity for Adam and Eve; ironically, though, this opportunity allows them
to become more human, more thoughtful, more wise. Before the serpent, Adam and Eve follow God
unquestioningly. Now, under the
influence of the serpents wiliness, they finally seek to fill their lives with
more.
The serpent also
provides Adam and Eve with the opportunity to add more layers of depth to their
relationship. When God confronts Adam
and Eve, asking, Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat of the tree from which I had
forbidden you to eat,[9]
Adam blames God for creating Eve as his helper and then blames Eve for his
actions, and Eve blames the serpent for tricking her. Here Adam shows unwillingness to take
responsibility for his actions; on the other hand, Eve is frank. She does does not accuse the serpent or Adam;
she reports: The serpent duped me, and I ate. Although Adam and Eve are guilty here,
neither of them, however, is more clearly at fault than the other. God makes Eve for Adam to help him, not to
mislead him. Adam relays Gods rules to
Eve, so if she does not understand them in the way that God intends them to be
understood, then Adam is partially at fault. Similarly, Eve does indeed know the rules of the garden to a degree, so
the serpent cannot entirely be blamed for her eating the fruit. Adam and Eve hurt each other when they are so
quick to avoid responsibility for their actions, but at least their willingness
to cast blame onto others and away from themselves serves as a model of how
couples should not act. Their hurtful behavior also serves as a
reminder of the emptiness that binds them together, for the empty spot in
Adams rib aches unless he and Eve work together to fill it through positive
actions as a couple.
In addition, God
responds to Adam and Eves fall into the abyss by filling their lives with
difficulty. God curses them with the
pangs of childbirth and the toil of the field, and in so doing He teaches them
once and for all about difference. It is
only through falling into the abyss, however, that Adam and Eve come to
understand the difference between living in Eden and living in the harsh, everyday world
of difficulty and pain. Fortunately,
they also come to understand God better, for they witness His desire to create
a certain balance in the universe, as though His pattern of filling and
emptying various components in the universe is more about redistribution,
sharing, and balance than about gaps and inequalities. The foremost example of Gods yearning for
balance comes at the end of Genesis 3, when God shows forgiveness to Adam and
Eve when he makes garments for them and clothes them. Even though He is angry that they eat the
fruit and become aware of their nakedness, he does not wish for them to be embarrassed
or uncomfortable, so he clothes them. In
another act of forgiveness, God banishes Adam and Eve from Eden to protect them against eating from the
tree of life; perhaps He also banishes them to prevent them from eating from
the tree of Life. If they eat from the
tree of Life after God states that they will
die one day, then Adam and Eve could potentially have less confidence in
God. They could see Him as misleading
and confusing, asking why they will now not die when God had said that they
would. In this light, that which He
takes away from them (Eden) is actually a gift of freedom, the freedom to live
out life as God ordains it for them: it is a life full of pains, yes, but it is
also a life full of God and His for balancing good against the bad.
In their book A Commentary on Genesis: The Book of
Beginnings, Martin Kessler and Karel Deurloo demonstrate another way in
which God uses His goodness to balance out the bad and fill a potential
emptiness in the universe. In an
explication of Genesis 2:7, Kessler and Deurloo write that the dust of the
[earth], like powder blown about, covering everything with a thin layer, but
which is easily blown away, illustrates the vulnerability of human
existence. If God does not give him
breath, the human is subject to death.[10] Here the authors suggest that the dust God
uses to make Adam is inherently weak and unstable, just as Adam and Eve prove
to be when confronted with the serpent. Without God, the human languishes in this instability and succumbs to
death. Adam and Eve eventually succumb
to death, but they do so because it is part of Gods protective plan for
them. Kessler and Deurloo imply that
death occurs only if God does not give breath to the human, but death can occur
even with Gods breath if God knows that death is in ones best interest. The authors are correct to link God to human
immortality because Gods plan for Eden
does include a tree that can cause one to live forever. They are incorrect, however, to posit death
as the evil, Godless endpoint, because in Genesis 2 and 3, God clearly thinks
that death is an appropriate end for Adam and Eve. God uses his power to give and take away
breath from mankind as an act full of benevolence designed to protect them from
eternal life, which He evidently views as empty, inappropriate, and wrong for
them. As Kessler and Deurloo do
ultimately explain, In all of his questionable independence the human cannot
appropriate life for himself. Human life
will remain a gift of God.[11] By taking away their access to the tree of
life, God gives Adam and Eve the gift of Himself.
According to
Rashi,[12]
Adam and Eve desperately need this gift of Godself and Gods help, for he
portrays them quite negatively. First,
when God creates Adam and the many other living creatures, Rashi writes:
animals and beasts are also called living souls. But, the one of man is the most alive for he
additionally was given intelligence and speech.[13] Here Rashi tries to answer the question about
how fully God creates Adam, as he explains concisely that God gives Adam
intelligence and speech. These are
generally positive attributes for a person to possess; ironically, for Adam
they increase his culpability regarding the eating of the fruit. If Adam is indeed intelligent and can speak
well, then he should be fully capable of understanding, communicating, and
obeying Gods rules. Ideally he should
also be wise enough not to try to cast his own responsibility for eating the
fruit onto Eve, but intelligence and eloquence do not necessarily always make a
person a mensch. Just because
God makes Adam smart does not mean that Adam can fully comprehend complex
differences like the difference between good and bad, so the question of how
well Adam can discern difference and how culpable he is still remains largely
unanswered. This unanswered question
about Adams intellectual and emotional makeup represents an enormous gap in
the text that is thus far unfilled.
Rashi attempts to
fill this gap in the text when he discusses Adam and Eves modesty. He writes,
They
did not know the ways of modesty to distinguish between
good
and evil. Although he [Adam] was given
the wisdom to call
[all
the creatures] by name, he was not imbued with the evil inclination
until
he ate from the tree and the evil inclination entered him and he was
able
to distinguish between good and evil.
Here Rashi attests that Adam and
Eve are each endowed with particular kinds of knowledge from the very
beginning, but he also attests that they lack certain kinds of knowledge
too. He suggests that they do not
understand modesty enough to discern the difference between good and bad, which
in this case equates to being unaware of ones nudity or not. Perhaps their lack of understanding in this
category results from their being born into a world in which nudity is the norm
and in which there are no clothed beings against which they can evaluate their
nudity. As far as modesty is concerned,
difference regarding nudity is simply nonexistent in Eden because awareness of nudity and of
sexual urges that accompany nudity does not yet exist. Rashi also teaches that although Adam is
highly intelligent, intelligent enough for God to trust him with the task of
naming the creatures, he is not intelligent enough to comprehend bad until he
eats from the tree. In this light,
Adams interpretation of Gods commandment not to eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and bad becomes increasingly complex. How would one interpret the commandment Do
not eat from this tree if one cannot understand the idea of the negative
repercussions of an act? If an act is
simply performed or not performed without understanding of consequence, then by
extension there is no understanding that ones acts can be judged. If there is neither good nor evil, then
performing a certain act must stem only from personal choice, from the desire
to do a certain thing or not do it. Adam
has no interest in the trees in the garden until Eve presents him with the
piece of fruit, and if he doesnt understand Gods injunction against eating as
negative, then why wouldnt he eat? Eve
would certainly eat too, if Adam tells her in a matter of fact way that God
doesnt want them to eat from a certain tree but cannot expand upon why. This new picture of Adam and Eve as being special,
intelligent, and slightly deficient in interpretive, inductive reasoning
demonstrates that God needs them to fall into the serpent/abyss so that he can
transform them into models of moral decision-making for future generations.
In addition to
casting Adam and Eve in a negative light regarding the tree, Rashi continues to
portray Adam and Eve in a negative light when he describes Eves creation. Rashi writes, And he slept
and He took. So that he not see the piece of flesh from
which she was created and be repulsive to him.[14] Here Rashi takes an almost surgical approach
to Eves creation, describing the place of the removal of Adams side as the
place of the cut[15]
and suggesting that the removed flesh might be repulsive to Adam if he were
to see it. Seen through Rashis eyes,
the removal of the side seems violent and aggressive instead of supportive,
loving, creative, and divine. It is
almost shocking to consider that Adam might be anything but overjoyed at the
thought of the creation of his helper, especially because God is her Creator. It also
difficult to consider anything about Eve repulsive even though she eats from
the tree. Rashi solves this problem when
he explains that Adam attempted to find [a mate] amongst all the animals and
beasts and he was not satisfied with them until he discovered Chavah.[16] For Adam, Eve is superlative, and Rashi
chooses an extreme way to describe her creation so that the reader of the
Genesis text does not take for granted the momentous way that Eve appears on
the earth. God creates her in an
unforgettable way that cannot be duplicated by humankind, and through her He
fills His near-empty universe with the possibility of future generations.
In the end, the
truth that emerges from Genesis 2:4- 3 is a combination of a plain sense
reading of the text and the Rashi interpretation. Rashis identification of Adam as being
supremely intelligent speaks to the fact of his naming all of Gods creatures,
and it partly answers the question of how fully God creates Adam. The answer here is that God makes Adam
intelligent and inventive. Rashis
indication that Adam does not know evil before he eats the fruit, however,
explains that Gods creation of Adams intelligence does not include an
interpretive sense of difference. Adam
can engage in a plain sense understanding of difference, for he can see that
the animals are different from one another, and he knows that Eve is separate
from him. He cannot, however, interpret
Gods explanation of the different trees beyond the plain sense, so he cannot
develop a moral understanding of acts or a moral consciousness about difference
until he eats the fruit. In this light,
his fall and expulsion from the garden can only be viewed positively, as it is
only through falling into the abyss that Adam--and Eve--can develop the
morality that they must model as parents to Gods future peoples. Genesis 2:4- 3 employs the concept of filling
and emptying to embody Gods implication that if there is an emptiness in one
part of the world, there lies an equal and opposite source for filling it in
another part of the world. This constant
redistribution creates the ultimate vehicle for healing: the idea that there is
always a source of compassion, energy, and fullness even for the most barren,
arid, empty soul.
ENDNOTES
[1] JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (Philadelphia:
The Jewish Publication Society, 2003) Genesis 2:5. (All biblical citations are taken from this
text.)
[2] Ibid.
[3] Genesis 2:10.
[4] Genesis 2:16-17
[5] Genesis 2:18
[6] Genesis 2: 23
[7] Genesis 2: 24
[8] Genesis 3: 2-3
[9] Genesis 3: 11
[10] Martin Kessler and Karel
Deurloo. A Commentary on Genesis: The Book of Beginnings (New
York/ Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2004) 43.
[11] Ibid, 57.
[12] Avrohom Davis. I
Bereshis: The Metsudah Chumash/Rashi (Lakewood,
NJ: The Israel Bookshop, 2002)
[13] Ibid, 23.
[14] Ibid, 28.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid, 29.
© 2007, Society for Scriptural Reasoning
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