Adam and Eve

I have started my 1 year through the Bible challenge to myself. Reading 3 Chapters everyday and 5 chapters of the Bible on Sundays, one can finish reading through God's Word in 365 days. Curiously enough, I can't get over the first 3 Chapters of Genesis that jumpstarted this undertaking. The story of Creation and Adam and Eve.

So it starts in the very beginning where there is nothingness, a void. Then God said let there be light, there was night and day, a firmament to separate the waters above and below, there was the sky; to separate the waters below and the dry earth, there was land and sea; plants; water animals; land animals; stars, sun and moon. Eventually, He created Adam- His prized creation. He said:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them
rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock,
over
all the earth,
and over all the creatures that move along the
ground."
27 So God
created man in his own image, in the image
of God
he created him; male and female he
created them.
28 God blessed them and
said to them, "Be fruitful and
increase in number; fill the earth and subdue
it. Rule over the fish of the sea
and the birds of the air and over every
living creature that moves on the
ground."

Then He thought that man is lonely. So He made a suitable helper for Him, a woman (of man) named Eve. And the rest is history.

22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the
man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,

"This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called 'woman, '

for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will
leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one
flesh. (Chapter 2)

After reading all this, I realized that indeed Man's weakness is a woman. It is with this union of Adam and Eve that the erotic has manifested. And it is with this union that humanity fell

Everyday of our lives we are seeking to recapture the lost Eden. It is here where there is sublime innocence and full trust between God and Man, man and woman, and woman and God is made clear. It is here where the communion with the Divine Creator, our Holy, Holy, Holy God is felt fully everyday. But this was lost because of sin. The woman gave in to the temptation to "Be like God" and the man lacked the balls to be firm in his faith and obey what God has instructed. 4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil." (Chapter 3)

God cursed man to toil for food and survival of the family, He cursed the woman with excruciating childbirth, and they both were banished from Eden forever.

But in this tragedy I can see a miracle about to start. Because you see, with these curses the roles of man and woman are defined, and the beginnings of romantic sexuality began. It is with this banishment that worship has taken root and value to everything He has created is established. Indeed, God's will is good. We yearn for the lost communion with God, the merging of eros and agape. And God has manifested Himself in us through love. To quote the renaissance mystic Recanati:

"All Love is the love of God."

I will share a very powerful Kabbalistic story I have encountered a year ago:
The Malach was in search of a wife. They called him the Malach, the Angel, for his appearance was so stunning, his wisdom so immeasurable, he seemed a divine presence among common men. Word spread throughout the shtetls and cities, a search began. They came to the town of Shalom Shachnah – a great Master in his own right, who was famous for his intense study. He would sit before stacks of books, consumed in the words, sweating with concentration, moving for nary a bowl of soup or a stoke of the fire. Shalom had a daughter, who rumor had it had inherited more than a little of her father’s intensity.

The Angel had found his match – the shidduch (match) was made. A buzz went out far and wide – the angel was marrying the daughter of Shalom Shachnah. Crowds gathered for the celebration. Everyone was there. A great host of people. But the host of the party? The father of the bride – where was he? He simply did not show up. Indeed, back at home, he had not stirred from his study, engrossed as he was in his great stack of books.The wedding went on without him – and how it went on! It was ecstatic, enlightening, with dance and drink, canopied as if by a bow of divine light, as befit the joining of the Angel and his bride.
After the wedding, the mother of the bride went home to her book-bound husband and screamed, “Where were you?! Do you know what you just missed? A wedding like you wouldn’t believe! Your own daughter’s wedding…and she was wedded to an absolute angel, a celestial soul! And you, you honored your books over your own blood! I refuse to speak to you until you go to their house in Mezritch for a proper Sabbath to give them the respect they deserve.”
And what is a man to do when his wife protests so? He set out the next week for the three days’ travel to Mezritch. He arrives for the Sabbath. The Sabbath prayers commence.
The Angel starts to sing. His voice rises and rivets the room, a voice unparalleled in earthly and heavenly spheres. A light fills the prayer hall, a light so enormous and magnetic that Shalom is overcome by its brilliance and faints. The song finishes and Shalom awakes.

The Angel approaches him and asks, “Tell us Shalom, what did you see?” Shalom answers with a whisper of awe,

“I saw your angels. I saw all of your surrounding angels dancing about your
shoulders! They were exquisite, amazing sites to behold. It was too much to
bear. I passed out.”

The Angel shaking his head, replies,

“Dear Father-in-law, it is a good thing that you passed out when you did. For
if you would have beheld your daughter you would have perceived an even mightier
and more majestic host of angels surrounding her. Their brilliance would have so
overwhelmed you that you might not have woken up at all.”

_________________________________________________________

Yearning. Pining. Longing. Unity.
Love.