By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky
Parashat Beresit
As we begin our Torah cycle readings again, in the first parasha, Bereshit, we read how when Adam and Eve ate the fruit “the eyes of both of them were opened,” now seeing each other’s nakedness. But this type of nakedness was not just physical nakedness, it was a nakedness of knowing vulnerability, having shame, embarrassment and the like, things that would cause them (and us) to run away from each other, themselves and even God.
When they run, God calls out “to Adam”and says, ayecha, “where are you.” But there is much more to that question than how it appears. You see the word ayecha really comes from the Hebrew word aych, which means “how” and not “where.” In other words, when Adam is asked, ayecha, it really is not a question about physical location, “where are you,” more so than an existential question of “how are you,” how are you now that your world is different than before, coming face to face with his nakedness of vulnerability, shame, embarrassment, mistrust and self-preservation at the expense of another. You see the question, ayecha, really wants to know is how Adam will react to a life he never knew before!
Rashi — the 12th century Rabbi whose teachings drive Jewish learning — says that when the Torah talks about their eyes being opened it “speaks with reference to intelligence, or the mind’s eye, and not with reference to actual seeing.” In this case, Rashi teaches that the “mind’s eye” refers to self-perception or discernment, and not physical vision. Vulnerability, shame and embarrassment are about perception — how others think of me or I think of myself — often not based on concrete fact or evidence. So for Adam, all of a sudden his choices now included the realization of consequences, needing to be more mindful in responding to others where choices in general are more intentional as opposed to obvious: no longer just one life choice (to eat or not eat the fruit) but many that would impact every part of his life. The story of Adam and Eve was not about just a piece of fruit, but the results that would yield “the burden of choice,” an abundance of choices, who’s centerpiece is human free-will.
This was the theme of my congregation’s High Holiday season, ayecha, “where are you,” where are you looking back at the year that just passed and how has that impacted the new year that just began? This was after all what happened to Adam: his before and after are very different and demanded a new way to live with multiple choices before him. Regarding this idea of the abundance of choices, Dr. Frederick Muench, who is part of the Department of Psychiatry at North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital, says causes “intrapsychic havoc on our well-being.” Intrapsychic havoc is just another way of saying that as people we only have so much bandwidth!We live in a world where we are inundated with the need to choose, with one of those choices happening in less than two-weeks as our country needs to make a decision about our next president, talk about Intrapsychic havoc!! Elections of this nature are never black and white as we make our choices of who we will vote for and why.
This Parasha of Bereshit also contains a not so obvious meaning to the existential question of ayecha, “where are you.” Will we let our differences make us choose between those who we agree with and those we don’t? That was the “sin” of the fruit. Instead of choosing to love our neighbor as ourselves, have we allowed the power of difference to win the day, letting the burden of choice speak louder than our connections to our fellow human, dividing us as Americans, and yes, as Jews. Adam and Eve did that, look what happened to them and their family, let’s seek to overcome this human flaw as we enter 5785.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Adam Ruditsky is the spiritual leader of Adat Chaverim in Plano and a member of the Rabbinic Association of Greater Dallas.