Commentaire de citation sur La Genèse 3:12

Midrash Tanchuma item 8 on our portion asks why the Torah used the expression אדם in our verse in preference to the customary איש? The answer given is that the Torah wishes to establish a parallel with the first human being who had sinned, i.e. אדם. We may understand the verse as follows: כי יחטא אדם כמו אדם הראשון שהתחיל לחטא יקריב קרבן; "If someone sins as did Adam who was the first human being who sinned, he shall offer a sacrifice." It appears from the wording of the author of the Tanchuma that Adam's sin was inadvertent seeing sin-offerings are acceptable only for sins committed inadvertently. The Midrash corresponds to what I have written on Genesis 3,12 on the words: "she gave to me." The entire פרשה here teaches us that G'd applied a different yardstick to man after Adam had sinned initially. Whereas the penalty for Adam's sin had been death, i.e. mortality, and the fact that he offered a sin-offering did not absolve him of his guilt, such offerings will help the Israelites to atone for the sins they commit inadvertently. The Tanchuma supplied the reason why G'd did not accept Adam's sacrifice as sufficient atonement, i.e. he had been the first human to sin; the evil urge had not been an integral part of him so that it would have been difficult to resist the lure of that urge. All subsequent human beings have been afflicted in that evil has become part of their life-force, נפש. The אות הברית, the sign of the covenant between us and G'd, i.e. the need to remove the foreskin through the act of circumcision, is the proof of the cardinal difference between us and Adam who had been created minus the foreskin.

בני האדם THE CHILDREN OF MAN (ADAM) — But whose children could they have been (except the children of man, i.e. human beings) — perhaps the children of donkeys or camels? But it means the children of Adam Harishon who proved himself ungrateful when he said, (Genesis 3:12) “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, [she gave me of the tree etc.]”. These people, also, were ungrateful, rebelling against the One who had showered kindness upon them and had rescued them from the Flood (Genesis Rabbah 38:9).

And she gave also to her husband with her. The word “with her” is explained by the commentators to mean so that he would be with her always and not marry another when she dies. It could also mean that she gave it to him while he was literally with her [sexually], for then she pressured him, similar to what is said about Samson: and she pressed him (Judges 16:16). Because at another time, perhaps he would not have listened to her to transgress God’s command. And regarding this, he said in his defense: The woman whom You gave to be with me. [Meaning:] At the time when she was literally with me, she overcame me — for according to the simple meaning, there is no justification for this defense. And regarding his claim she gave me from the tree, perhaps he meant to say as a defense that since the command did not state “from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge you shall not eat” but rather said from the Tree of Knowledge you shall not eat, I thought that the intention was that I am not permitted to pluck the fruit from the tree, but if it was already plucked and available, I thought it was permissible for me to eat it. And now, she gave me from the tree, and I did not take it from the tree myself.