Three Different Ways to View Woman in Bereishit

As we begin reading the Torah, we see various aspects of the way in which woman is portrayed.  In the first story of creation, G-d creates HaAdam.  HaAdam is an androgynous human creature.  “And G—d created the Human in His image, in the image of G-d He created him; male and female he created them.”  HaAdam is called upon to create, just as G-d creates.  Male and female of the human species is equally blessed.  “And G-d said to them, be fruitful and multiply.” One gender does not have an advantage over the other, both are in direct communication with G-d. As Pardes instructor, Judith Klitsner states, “In her original manifestation as HaAdam, woman is fully half of the human creature who is master of the physical world, formed in G-d’s image, and privy to G-d’s word.

The next chapter of Bereishit however sees woman in a different way.  In the second story of creation, G-d creates HaAdam who is purely male.  HaAdam is formed from the dust, and G-d “blew into his nostrils, the breath of life.”  HaAdam is put into the Garden of Eden to take care of it, but he is lonely.  So G-d puts HaAdam to sleep and creates woman from HaAdam’s rib.  Woman becomes his helper.  “She is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.”  Her name is no longer HaAdam, rather she becomes Isha.  Her name is based on the fact, that she now is not on an equal footing with man, ISH.  She does become man’s life partner, but does not have an identity without him although he is delighted with her arrival. 

Woman, as Isha , is not really satisfied with the lot she has been given.  She opts for the promises of the serpent in the story because she is yearning for the kind of “equality and immortal godliness” described in the first creation story.  In this second story she “has no creative role…nor does she receive G-d’s instruction.” (Klitsner)

After Isha has eaten from the forbidden fruit and convinced her husband to do the same, she is renamed by her husband.  Now we encounter the third face of woman, namely Hava…the mother of all the living.  In Genesis 3:16 G-d said to the woman, “I will make most severe your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bear children.  Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”  In verse 20 of chapter 3 we read, how the man names his wife Chava, because she is the mother of all the living.  Being the mother of all the living can be seen as a way of elevating woman to the status that she so desperately wanted when she was only seen as ISHA, for to be godlike from the Torah perspective is to be able to create human beings.

The initial creation of humanity has male and female on an equal basis, and although history has shown that sociologically that achieving this state has been a struggle that continues to this day, the Torah is perhaps showing us that “equality, mutuality, and godliness” are part of the story of humanity that we need to strive to achieve.