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Drash
for Shabbat Breisheet I think I can be pretty safe in saying that we all know the story of Adam and Eve. I could ask almost anyone, including small children, what the biblical story of creation of man is and I would get Adam and Eve as the answer. But do we really know the story? I have concentrated on trying to get to know Eve and the Snake for this Drash, in order to keep from creating a full sermon. In eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Eve does something. But is it something negative: a sin, a mistake, a fall, rebellion, or is it something positive: a reach for what is new, a desire to understand what she can not, a desire to grow and become the person she is meant to be, an acceptance of change? We all have that internal voice that perhaps we don’t listen to often enough. At this point Eve is innocent like a small child. She can think and she can learn, but she can’t really do anything her thoughts or knowledge, because she does not know the difference between good and evil. Until we know the difference between good and evil, we can’t use our knowledge, make decisions, or even fully love our partners, family, and friends. Societal and cultural norms influence our perception of good and evil to be sure but we, and Eve must know the difference to progress in our lives. She listens to the Snake, thinks over what it tells her and what she already knows and then eats the fruit. The Torah actually tells us a little of what she is thinking, which is rare, so the fact that she thinks about it is important in realizing that what she is doing might actually be a positive step in her life. Eve takes the initiative to make the change in her life. Adam ultimately decides to make the change also. Eve does not threaten or seduce, flirt, beguile or insist, and even if she did, Adam would not yet understand it himself since he has yet to eat it. She simply gives him some and he makes his own decision. Who is the snake in all of this and what does it symbolize? I have read that it is the Yetzer Hara, Satan, the voice of Lilith in a contemporary midrash I once read, or perhaps it is Eve’s inner voice telling her that she needs to get on with the rest of her life and this will help her in that direction. We all have that inner voice, we just don’t always listen to it when we should. Another idea is, while this might be a little shocking to some people, that it might even be God, who is perhaps trying to help them advance in a backhanded sort of way, like our parents when they told us not to do something, knowing we would do it anyway and needed to do it. They knew that we would do it perhaps sooner rather than later if it were forbidden. Are these positive, negative of somewhere in between? With the exception of Satan, I feel that they are in between positions, where the change could be positive, negative or a combination of the two. In any event the snake symbolizes change, and in the Torah when snakes appear, change is imminent. Snakes are a suitable symbol for change in that they shed their skins, symbolic of casting of the old and embracing the new, and that they silently slither around and end up where we might be least expecting them. This sort of subtle change most often happens when we find out an old dream long forgotten has become such a snake. It has shed its skin and slithered around and become a new dream or goal embodying the essential part of the old one but in a new context. We live in a world that is constantly changing. How do we know what snakes to let in to our lives, which ones to ignore, and which ones to discourage, remove from our lives altogether or perhaps even destroy, when there seem to be snakes everywhere? We are often afraid of change. Perhaps the snake being told that people will hate and fear it is a metaphor for our fear of change. Perhaps part of our fear comes from focusing on what we might loose rather than what we will gain. We don’t have to let this frighten us. We have Torah and Talmud as a framework to guide our lives. We also have the freedom to think, learn and to make our own decisions based on what we know and have experienced. By combining the two it is hoped that we can make intelligent decisions when the snakes of change beckon, threaten or just show up on our doorsteps unannounced. Eve had much to loose, but what she had to gain was worth the loss, as it is for us all. Shabbat Shalom. |
