פירוש על בראשית 3:12

אשר נתת עמדי WHOM THOU GAVEST TO BE WITH ME — Here he showed his ingratitude (Avodah Zarah 5b).

THE WOMAN WHOM THOU GAVEST TO BE WITH ME. The sense of it is to say: “The woman whom Thy Honor Himself gave me for a help, she gave me of the tree, and I thought that whatever she says to me is a help and benefit to me.” This is why He said when meting out his punishment, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,³⁸⁹Further, Verse 17. meaning “You should not have transgressed My commandment on account of her advice.” Our Rabbis have called Adam “ungrateful” for this remark.³⁹⁰Avodah Zarah 5b. By this they mean to explain that the sense of his answer was: “Thou caused me this stumbling for Thou gavest me a woman as a help, and she counselled me to do evil.”³⁹¹He thus ascribed his sin to G-d’s giving him Eve as a help. (Rashi, ibid.) In this he spoke ungratefully.

היא, she, who was meant to be an assistant to me has turned out to be the opposite.

ויאמר האדם האשה אשר נתת עמדי. Adam said: "The woman You put with me." The manner of Adam's reply was so unseemly that one would not expect him to use it vis-a-vis the least important human being, certainly not when addressing the King of Kings. Besides, when Adam said: "she gave me from the tree, and I ate," why did he add the unnecessary words "from the tree?" We would all have understood that he referred to said tree without his repeating this. Eve did not bother to say that it was the tree she ate from.

ויאמר...האשה אשר נתת עמדי, he meant to say that “You G’d are the cause of my sin, seeing that You have given me such a woman who seduced me to eat from the tree.”

And I ate: This is like a confession; as if he is saying, "I sinned, as I ate." And it is like Shaul said (I Samuel 15:24), "I have sinned, as I have transgressed, etc. for I feared the people." Behold he intermingled the apology and the confession together. So too did Adam apologize - that he did not, God forbid, eat [it] contemptuously, but nevertheless, "Behold I sinned and I ate." And likewise is the explanation about the statement of the woman, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate" (Genesis 3:13).

האשה אשר נתת עמדי, “the woman You have given me as my companion, etc.” According to Nachmanides Adam’s excuse was that seeing that G’d had given him Chavah as an עזר, helpmate, everything she would ask or advise him to do would be of benefit and use to him. It had not therefore occurred to him that her advice could be harmful if followed. When G’d punished him, He made plain that Adam’s argument was flawed as how could he ignore G’d’s command and accept a contrary command by one of G’d’s creatures? My sainted father the רא'ש explained that the only reason why Adam could use the excuse he offered was because he had already eaten from the fruit of the tree and had become aware of the difference between good and evil. He accused his wife of having tricked him.

אשר נתתָה, die du mir zur Seite gesetzt, die mir völlig ebenbürtig nach deinem Willen sein sollte, die wir zusammen nicht nur ein לב und נפש, sondern ein בשר, einen die Bestrebungen des Geistes und Willens vollbringenden Leib bilden, eins sein sollen in Wille und Tat, die hat mir gegeben, ihr Wille war auch für mich entscheidend. Indem Adam sich nicht mit einem verlockenden Reiz, auch nicht mit einer vom Weibe geübten Verführung, sondern einfach mit dem Anschluss an ihren Willen entschuldigte, ist hier die ursprüngliche, völlig harmonische Gleichheit in der Bestimmung des Mannes und Weibes offenbar.

Once he saw that one cannot cover up before the One that knows all secrets, he confessed against his will and said, "The iniquity is not upon me, but rather upon the woman." The woman said, "The iniquity is upon the serpent." As this is the way of thieves - when they are caught, they give away one another. The serpent did not find an answer, for we do not [allow] an inciter to make a claim - as our Rabbis said (Sanhedrin 29a): As even though they should not have listened to him - for [in a case of] the words of the teacher and the words of the student, to whom does one listen - nevertheless, he should not have entrapped [them], as they transgressed the commandment of the Creator. And they all confessed that they transgressed - as the Holy One said to Adam, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife, (Genesis 3:17) more than [to] My voice." And all the more so, the woman should not have listened to the serpent, who was not her friend and advisor. Hence Scripture said to Adam, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife"; whereas it did not say to the woman, "Because you listened to the voice of the serpent." As it an a fortiori argument, so there is no need [to say it]. And the Holy One, blessed be He, began to curse them in the way that they did the transgression: The snake that started was cursed first, and Adam afterwards.

האשה אשר נתתה עמדי, “the woman You have given me to be my companion;” Adam complains that this woman who had been meant to be his helper, assistant, had instead turned out to be his seducer. He had assumed that he could trust her implicitly. He claimed that he had not known from which tree she had taken the fruit she offered him. The Torah had not mentioned which fruit she had asked him to share, i.e. the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Adam implied that if he had known that this was the fruit of the tree of knowledge he would not have eaten from it. Had he refused her offer of the fruit, he would have appeared as ungrateful, for how could he refuse something that G-d had provided, seeing that only good things emanate from G-d. (Compare Avodah Zarah, 5)

נתנה לי מן העץ, and has become a hindrance instead of a help. By saying these words, Adam tried to blame his Creator for having committed a sin. Adam, instead of being defensive by repenting, apologizing, admitting his guilt, as did David when the prophet Natan had called him to order over his conduct with Bat Sheva, (Samuel II 12,13)

Apparently Adam did not know exactly what happened except that Eve had placed something before him and he had eaten without examining it. He had not felt the need to ask her what it was she had placed before him seeing that the whole earth was his to enjoy. He added "which You put with me" in justification for not having enquired where the fruit had come from. It was as if he had said to G'd that since G'd had supplied the woman, he, Adam, had no reason to be suspicious about her motives. After all, nothing evil originates in Heaven! Our sages have said: אין בודקין מן המזבח ולמעלה, "once something (a slaughtered animal) has arrived on the altar (having passed several stages of inspection on the way) there is no need to again check its suitability as a sacrifice." Adam argued that if the חזקה, the presumption of fitness of such an animal, is acceptable, then surely a woman supplied by G'd Himself need not be examined for blemishes.

When Adam said: "from the tree," he referred to a tree planted within the garden seeing all those trees had been planted by G'd Himself (2,8-9). When Adam spoke of "the tree," he did not refer to the tree of knowledge which G'd had referred to. He described his situation before he had eaten from the fruit Eve gave him. At that time he thought the fruit was from any of a number of trees. It was only after he had tasted the fruit that he became aware that this fruit must have been from the tree of knowledge. Adam's argument then was not nearly as outrageous as it appears at first glance. Although one might even argue that Adam said he ate merely from the tree and not from its fruit, and that eating from the tree had not been forbidden, such an argument is not tenable for a number of reasons.

As a result, Adam was merely a שוגג, an unintentional sinner. One might go further and claim that he was an innocent victim and thus not guilty at all. This would explain why G'd' did not curse Adam but only the earth. The truth is, however, that Adam acted carelessly in not accurately repeating G'd's command to Eve. He had mentioned only the fruit of the tree to Eve, not the prohibition of the tree itself. This inaccuracy paved the way for all the subsequent events.