פּירוש אויף בראשית 2:15

ויקח AND HE TOOK — He took him with kind words and induced him to enter (Genesis Rabbah 16:5).

לעבדה, “to irrigate it;”

לעבדה, a reference to perfecting his own personality, that which was supplied by G’d in an as yet unrefined state, the one called נשמת חיים. [the author searched to justify the use of the feminine mode in the word לעבדה and related it to נשמה, soul, a noun which is feminine and requires further refinement, just like שיר and שירה which both mean song, the latter, in the feminine mode being unrefined when compared to the former. Compare its use in the haggadah shel Pessach. Ed.]