לא טוב היות אדם לבדו
“It is not good for man to be alone …” Genesis 2:18
In the second chapter of Bereshit (Genesis) the Tora narrates in more detail the creation of man and woman. The Tora explains that the Creator initially created Adam, man, alone, without a woman, and only at a later stage He created Eve, the woman.
MAN and WOMAN: WHO IS SUPERIOR?
This order in Creation does not establish or suggest a level of superiority of man. Actually you could argue the opposite. 1. In the Creation account we see a sort of “evolution” from the least sophisticated to the most sophisticated. First HaShem creates matter: atoms. Then with the atoms He creates the atmosphere and the continents. Only at the end of the Third Day of Creation we see the appearance of the first cells with the creation of plants. On the Fifth DayHaShem brought to existence oviparous animals: insects, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians. On the Sixth Day HaShem creates mammals, creatures that are superior to the oviparous(warm blood, more complex brain, milk production, etc.). At the end of the Sixth Day HaShem creates man, a mammal but with a higher-Divine element: intelligence. The woman appears at the end. The last Divine creation, which suggests a higher lever of design (ויבן את האשה). The Sages explained that the woman was created with bina yetera, a superior intelligence. 2. Man was created from a “lower” source, the dust of the earth, just like mammals. The woman, and only the woman, was created from a living body, a source “superior” to the dust of the earth.
SPECIAL DELIVERY
There is another very important lesson learned from the order in which the first woman was created. In Bereshit 2:18-20, the Creator shows man the animals. Adam, the first man, is invited to name the animals, thus, recognizing them as a different category of being. The famous biblical commentator Radaq explains that this encounter between Adam and the animals served Adam to recognize himself as a being who, unlike all others, has a superior “divine” element: his spirit, his intelligence. And in addition, although the sexual element still does not appear in this context, Adam also recognized “gender”, masculine and feminine, in the animals. Radaq says that it was only after (or thanks to) this encounter that Adam realized that he was alone. The Tora Alone in two senses. 1. Man did not find among the animals a “company” (עזר), that is, someone else, of a different kind, but “on a similar level” (כנגדו), in other words, someone on the same mental level as him and with the ability to think and choose. The encounter with the animals helped Adam to understand simultaneously his singularity and his solitude. Perhaps this is the reason why HaShem did not create woman at the same time as man. So that man can come to realize for himself, thanks to his Divine intelligence, that he needs a company. And that this company (or companion) does not yet exist. The woman was not imposed by God on man. It was the man who asked HaShem to create the woman. The Rabbis of the Midrash expressed this deep idea explaining that after meeting the animals Adam prayed (this was the first prayer!) And asked HaShem a companion at his level. HaShem made man realize that it is not good for him to be alone. Thus, even before a woman existed, Adam already desires that special someone, a woman, next to him.
