Of Man and Beast

Talk of reclaiming the Jewish bookshelf – the canonical texts that are the heritage of every Jew – is in the air. I cannot imagine a better guide on that path than Rabbi David Fohrman.

Rabbi Fohrman has been teaching mixed groups of secular and religious Jews for years. And he has now produced a rare work that will equally delight those who have been studying Chumash with the classical commentaries all their lives and those lacking even knowledge of Hebrew.

The Beast that Crouches at the Door is close reading of two of the best known Biblical stories: Adam and Chava’s eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and Kayin’s murder of his brother Hevel. The book is philosophically deep, psychologically acute, hypersensitive to the nuances of the Biblical text, and reads like a mystery. Each short chapter ends with the reader hanging on the edge of the cliff eager to proceed.

By focusing on stories whose basic outlines are familiar, Fohrman demonstrates how we are all prone – learned and unlearned alike – to the “Lullaby Effect” when confronting well-known texts. No one ever thought to ask why a baby would be comforted by a song about a cradle crashing down from a tree top. And similarly, we fail to note obvious questions in the Biblical texts.

Fohrman forces us to pay attention. We would be appalled by a mother who responded to two children eagerly offering her their drawings, “Rachel yours is beautiful; your use of colors is exquisite. Yaakov, your stick figures are beneath contempt.” And we would be even more horrified if she failed to apologize or offer any consolation to Yaakov after he burst into tears of humiliation.

But isn’t that just what G-d did with the offerings of Kayin and Hevel? Well, actually it is not. But Rabbi Fohrman is not afraid to ask the question.

Nor does he shy away from the big philosophical issues. Why would a perfect God need to create the world? If Adam and Chava had no knowledge of Good and Evil, why were they punished for eating from the fruit of the Tree? And if they did have such knowledge, what changed as a consequence of their eating?

He does not even fear arousing feminist wrath, noting the parallel between God’s curse of Chava – “your desire will be to your husband, yet he can rule over you” – and His words to Kayin just before he murders Hevel – “its [the yetzer hara’s] desire is unto you, yet you can rule over it.” Does the Torah mean to analogize Woman to the Evil Inclination?

Again, no. Rabbi Fohrman cites a Midrash that links the two teshukos (desires) mentioned above to the desire of rain for the land and God for humanity. Clearly, the Midrash did not mean to analogize God to the yetzer hara. Rather the Midrash hints to a type of desire that emanates not from the absence of something but from an overflow that seeks to join and give to another.

In that reading, the yetzer hara is not a devil in a bright red suit whispering in our ear but the sum total of our desires, passions, and ambitions – particularly the desire to create. (Yetzer is a variant of yotzer, to create). Thus our Sages describe Torah as the tavlin, spice, giving direction and taste to the yetzer hara, which is the “meat” of life.

THE BEAST THAT CROUCHES AT THE DOOR is an extended meditation on what it means to be human and the nature of desire. The primordial Snake, in the Biblical account, stands upright, reasons, and speaks. In what sense, then, was he not human? The key lies in his question to Chava, usually translated, “Did God really say that you may not eat from any of the trees of the Garden?” Fohrman, following Rabbi Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, however, offers a more literal translation: “Even if God said do not eat from any of the trees of the Garden, . . . [so what]?

The Snake argued that the same God who commanded Adam and Chava not to eat also imbued them with their desires and instincts, and that the latter are a no less authentic voice of God. And so it is for animals – they really do “listen” to God by following their instincts. Only humans hear God’s Word and are commanded to take their desires and fashion them into something more than unbridled instinct.

The Snake’s argument will be familiar to anyone acquainted with the works of Princeton ethicist Peter Singer. The view of man as nothing but a more sophisticated, pleasure-seeking animal has entered the zeitgeist.

The key clue buttressing Fohrman’s interpretation of the Snake’s argument is an anomaly in the Biblical text. The Snake’s dialogue with Chava follows a seeming digression describing Adam’s naming of all the animals and attempts to find a partner among them. Chronologically that section should have preceded the creation of Chava.

It is interjected out of order, Fohrman argues, to provide the motivation for the Snake’s efforts to convince Chava to eat of the Tree. The Snake wanted to reclaim Chava for the animal kingdom that Adam had rejected. In the words of our Sages, he wanted to kill Adam and marry Chava.

In a subtle analysis of Chava’s misstatement the Divine commandment with respect to eating from the Tree, Rabbi Fohrman explicates the various ways desire gains the upper hand: by overstating the importance of the object of desire – Chava moves the Tree to the “center” of the Garden; by minimizing the significance of what is permitted – Chava omits Hashem’s permission to eat of “all” the other trees; by overstating the extent of what is prohibited – Chava adds a prohibition on “touching” the tree; and by trivializing the consequences of giving into desire – Chava does not mention that the death will become an immediate and inevitable reality on the very day of eating.

Adam and Chava’s eating of the forbidden fruit, and the diminution in the distinction between human and animal that follows, led directly to Kayin’s murder of Hevel. The Biblical text emphasizes the thematic connection. The consequences of Kayin’s act parallel the punishment of Adam, only in an intensified form. Adam hides from God; Kayin senses he will spend the rest of his life hiding from Hashem. Adam is exiled from the Garden: Kayin proclaims that he will be a wanderer all his days. Adam is cursed that he will henceforth bring forth food from the ground by the sweat of his brow; Kayin is told that the land will not give of its strength to him at all.

Kayin senses his descent further towards the animal kingdom. He is afraid that all who find him will kill him, and the greatest of the Biblical exegetes, Rashi, explains that his fear is specifically of the wild beasts, for the animals natural awe of a human being has now been lost. Our Sages tell us that Kayin was killed by his seventh generation descendant Lemech after being mistaken for an animal.

Such delights fill every page of The Beast that Crouches at the Door. I cannot think of a better way to begin the new cycle of the Torah than with a copy.

This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post, October 3, 2008.

You may also like...

5 Responses

  1. Noam says:

    I prefer Rav Yeudah Henkin’s explaination in “Equality Lost”. Instead of blaming Chava for the misstatement, he posits that Chava’s misstatement is because Adam added the prohibition of ‘touching the tree’ when he communicated God’s commands to her. He added to the prohibition because of a lack of trust and respect, and obviously it had severe consequences. Rav Henkin traces this lack of respect for women through a number of stories in Bereshit, all with significant consequences. The lessons regarding respecting women and the dangers of adding extraneous prohibitions is obvious and should be heeded by all.

  2. cvmay says:

    Thank you for the overview of this literary piece, looking forward to reading, learning, and gaining from it.

  3. Toby Katz says:

    I always wondered about the obvious similarity between the words addressed to Chava after her sin and the words addressed to Kayin after his sin — the play in both cases on the word “teshuka,” longing. To Chava, “You will long for your husband but he will rule over you.” To Kayin, “Sin will long for you but you can rule over it.”

    What does it mean, “Sin will long for you but you can rule over it?” It apparently means that the yetzer hara will try to seduce you but you can overcome it, you don’t have to yield to it. If you then back up and read the words said to Chava, it seems to be saying, “You, the woman, will try to seduce your man but he can overcome your blandishments, if he is strong he will not yield to the temptations you offer him!” Yes, it really does sound like the woman is compared to the yetzer hara, a temptation to be overcome! but people just seemed to dismiss it.

    Rashi does say something that comes close to addressing this issue — he explains “Your desire will be to your husband” as meaning that a woman will desire to have relations with her husband but (in most cases) a woman’s nature is such that she is not brazen enough to ask outright, but will attempt to arouse her husband’s interest non-verbally, and if he doesn’t respond to her unspoken wishes there is not much she can do about it. Asking doesn’t help — it’s like if you have to say, “Tomorrow is my birthday, be sure and bring me flowers!” then the flowers on your birthday lose a lot of their charm and meaning!

    Anyway, even though, as I said, Rashi does sort of address the meaning of “your desire will be to your husband,” I had not previously heard a satisfactory explanation, or indeed, any explanation, of the SIMILARITY of the wording in these two cases. I think a lot of people are oblivious to the obvious POETRY in the Torah, the deliberate plays on words. So I am very happy to see this issue addressed, and I look forward to reading this book.

  4. cazzie says:

    I have the utmost admiration for Rabbi Forhman’s book and shiurim.. He is certainly bright, most origional and has a captivating style. He fuses texts and words that have gone largely unoticed to gain unusual insight. As of last Shabbos Berishis he started giving a lecture/davar Torah on chumash in the newly created sefard minyan at the Young Israel of Woodmere. All those close by would be wise to hear this remarkable talmid chacham.

  5. DF says:

    “He CAN rule over you” is not an accurate translation. The verse says quite clearly, “He WILL rule over you”. It was not said as a possibility, but as a finality, a punishment to Woman. This is the type of apologetic translation I would expect in an egalatarian chumash, not a Jonathan Rosenblum article.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This