Genesis 2-3: Nakedness and Covering

Genesis chapter 2

25 And they were both naked, the Chovah and her man, and were not ashamed.

Chapter 3

1 And the serpentess was more naked than any animal of the field which the Tehovah Elohin had made. And she said to the man, “Even though Elohin said do not eat from any tree in the garden’”

[…]

7 And both their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed a fig leaf, and made themselves girdles.

8 And they heard the voice of Tehovah Elohin walking in the garden in the breeze of day; and the Chovah and her man hid themselves from the presence of Tehovah Elohin inside the tree of the garden.

9 And Tehovah Elohin called to the Chovah, and said to her, “Where are you?”

10 And she said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid.”

[…]

21 And Tehovah Elohin made for the Chovah and for her man skin covers, and dressed them.

בראשית פרק ב

כה וַתִּהְיֶנָה שְׁתֵּיהֶן עֲרוּמּוֹת הַחֹוָּה וְאִישָׁהּ וְלֹא תִּתְבֹּשָׁשְׁנָה:

פרק ג

א וְהַנָּחָשָׁה הָיְתָה עֲרוּמָה מִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה אֲשֶׁר עָשְׂתָה תְהוָה אֱלֹהִין וַתֹּאמֶר אֶל־הָאִישׁ אַף כִּי־אָמְרָה אֱלֹהִין לֹא תֹאכַלְנָה מִכֹּל עֵץ הַגָּן:  

...

ז וַתִּפָּקַחְנָה עֵינֵי שְׁתֵּיהֶן וַתֵּדַעְנָה כִּי עֵירֻמּוֹת הֵן וַתִּתְפֹּרְנָה עֲלֵה תְאֵנָה וַתַּעֲשֶׂנָה לָהֶן חֲגֹרֹת:  

ח וַתִּשְׁמַעְנָה אֶת־קוֹל תְהוָה אֱלֹהִין מִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ בַּגָּן לְרוּחַ הַיּוֹם וַתִּתְחַבֵּא הַחֹוָּה וְאִישָׁהּ מִפְּנֵי תְהוָה אֱלֹהִין בְּתוֹךְ עֵץ הַגָּן:  

ט וַתִּקְרָא תְהוָה אֱלֹהִין אֶל־הַחֹוָּה וַתֹּאמֶר לָהּ אַיֶּךְ:  

י וַתֹּאמֶר אֶת־קֹלֵךְ שָׁמַעְתִּי בַּגָּן וָאִירָא כִּי־עֵירֹמָה אָנֹכִי וָאֵחָבֵא:  

...

כא וַתַּעַשׂ תְהוָה אֱלֹהִין לְחֹוָּה וּלְאִישָׁהּ כָּתְנוֹת עוֹר וַתַּלְבִּשֵׁן:    

*

Vacation at last. No school this week, and despite COVID, The Israel Museum is open to the public, in limited numbers. The whole family runs in pouring rain from pavilion to pavilion, exhibit to exhibit, till we find ourselves by chance at an exhibit we hadn’t known about. Drawn as if by a magnet to this exhibit, dealing with three groups of contemporary Jerusalem women who cover their bodies in layers of clothing: The most extreme ultra-Orthodox, known as “The Shawl Women”; very pious Muslim women; and Christian nuns.

Mounted in three display cases are the different layers of clothing with which the women of each of the three groups cover themselves daily (some up to five layers, some as many as seven!), for religious reasons, to keep to the utmost their modesty. When you come down to it, viewed from the outside, they seem more similar than different, and many people in the street, on seeing the covered women, can’t tell who is who.

Another part of the exhibit was in a darkened, inner room, with a video installation offering, presumably, an opportunity for a woman from each group to tell her life story. A “representative” of each group, played by an actress, describes what led her to take upon herself wrapping in all these layers, which the women among whom they grew up and live today, do not. The actresses peel off layers one after the other and explain their meanings. The three figures relate life experiences, and the ideologies, that arose in many interviews that the curators of the exhibit had with women in the different groups. The video is hypnotizing, gripping and arouses lots of different thoughts and feelings.

I am moved by the exhibit also because just now Yael and I translated the first chapters of Toratah into English, mentioning the first garments in the world – the ones that The Chovah and her Man made for themselves when they discovered their nakedness after eating of the tree of knowledge, and the ones given them, later, by Elohin. Nakedness and clothing, I’m trying to understand, how did it begin and how have we gotten to where we are today?

That night at dinner, the family doesn’t stop talking about the video we saw in the museum. We talk about the Jewish “shawl women,” usually women who didn’t grow up religious and adopted the practice of staying covered, 24/7 (even in the shower), a practice that doesn’t exist in Jewish tradition and law, and is even condemned by Ultra-Orthodox rabbis and even at times by their own spouses. As Jerusalemites, we’ve long encountered them in the streets.

In Israel these Jewish “shawl women” are regularly on the receiving end of recoil, anger and hatred. In 2009, one of their leaders was found guilty of severe child abuse, including ignoring incest among her own children, and sentenced to jail.  That incident threatened to end the phenomenon, but astonishingly (to everyone except the women of that community themselves) it didn’t change their dedication to this practice and their numbers have been growing in different Israeli cities.

In the video, the figure portraying the Jewish “shawl woman” relates that she grew up in mainstream secular society, got her Bachelor’s in Biology and Computer Science at university, and was always seeking some spiritual meaning to existence. She became religiously observant but was still unsatisfied. The place of the body in Western society today, the endless pursuit of the perfect sexy look, drove her nuts. And her frustration pushed her to this new practice of taking on layers of clothing on her entire body, until the body’s own outlines disappear, and she’s left as a soul with no body. To her mind, by doing this she exits Western culture and its game of objectifying women, with women’s participation, and that she now dwells in a world where she sets the rules, defines herself and her place in the world.

The two other figures in the video, in particular the nun, who came to the convent straight from the medical school at University of California – Berkeley, convey a similar message: The decision to take upon themselves multiple layers is a reaction to the objectification of women around them and a way for them to widen, and strengthen their own spiritual worlds. The three of them sound like empowered women, and even if the social costs are steep, they are at peace with their decision, and happy with it. The video doesn’t judge them, just present their voices, and so it is so stimulating and shakes you up. It invites the viewers to think for themselves.

In the following meeting with Yael, I tell her about the exhibit, and the questions it raised for me: Is there really some way to exit the patriarchal game that objectifies women, that demands (today too, only in different language) women’s sexual constant availability to men’s desires. Of course, I see the positive sides of the sexual revolution, I admit, and the growing ways in which women can manage their own sexuality, in the wake of the changes that feminism has wrought in law. But inside me, I know the extent of women’s sexual exploitation, taking place in ways and areas not defined as “exploitation” by law. I see clearly how the body is the first, and sometimes main, calling card for growing young women when they try to find their place in society. I know well that desperate chase of older women after looking sexy and ask myself, is there some way to be a woman even beyond physical appearance? Are the physical and spiritual dimensions of ourselves stand in opposition to one another or nourish each other?? 

The more I turn this over in my head, I believe that there is no way in this world to ignore the body.  Am I wrong? The strongest impression the video left on me was that the figures there fell into just the same trap they were trying to flee – from the place that their female body takes in the world. At the end of it, they devote all their energy to dealing with the attempt to diminish this presence and so make it sexual all the more. The body becomes the center of their world. And their unusual appearance actually draws attention rather than deflect it.  These women live on the other side of the coin that they so despise. It seems, on the other side of the coin. But it’s still the same coin from which it seems, there’s no escape.  I ask Yael that we go back to Genesis Chapters 2 and 3 and talk some more about what happened there in the Garden in the passage from nakedness to fig-leaf girdles to skin covers.

Genesis 2 closes with the declaration that the Hovah and her Man, after meeting one another, were naked and unashamed of it.  What is “nakedness”? This expression hadn’t appeared to now, and was unrelated to any living thing.  And what’s the connection between nakedness and “shame” another word we’ve never seen before. 

Genesis 3 opens with the declaration that this “nakedness” applies to the Serpentess, too. Toratah’s version of Genesis 3, Yael and I had studied in the past as we were building the tie between us, and we discovered we didn’t understand it the same way. We took matters in hand and each of us wrote her own commentary to the chapter which, through using key words and central expressions, dealt with the dynamics that we think took place in the Garden. Yael wove the different interpretations into an artwork that she displayed at an exhibition at Hebrew Union College in New York, and which stirred strong reactions. To Yael, the story in the Garden, climaxing in the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, is no sort of Original Sin, but to the contrary, a description of humanity’s inevitable growth, and its consciousness in particular.

Yael understands the story of the Garden, which according to Toratah was created by Elohin, as a story of pregnancy and birth. Elohin places the Chovah in the “primordial, tender garden” (Then Tehovah Elohin created the Chovah dust of the soil, and blew into her nostrils the breath of life; and the Chovah became a living soul. And Tehovah Elohin planted a primordial tender garden; and there She put the Chovah whom She had created. Gen 2:7-8) – the gentle womb – dwelling in an existence before the one we know, a place where the Chovah will be surrounded by everything she needs.  This womb is tied to the existence outside it by channels – rivers – each one with a quality all its own.  And it also has a Serpentess – an umbilical cord, which in time will be cut in a process of birth and separation.

The Serpentess, like the Chovah and her Man, is naked. In Hebrew the root ע.ר.מ has a few meanings, for instance, to be uncovered, or to be devious. Traditional Bible commentaries understand the first humans by the first sense, of being naked, and the Serpent, by the second, of being tricky. Yael and I understand the Serpentess’ being ‘arumah as identical to that of Chovah and her Man, nakedness. This nakedness is being devoid of sophistication or the ability to criticize. A simple consciousness, prior to notice multiplicity and existence’s being a compound of good and evil. The Serpentess, nehashah, echoes the word tehushah, sense or feeling, naked of the ability to lie or to plot.  She is chained, at least on one of her sides, to the simple truth that she knows, to an existential level of immediate, unmediated experience.

The Man of Toratah, then, speaks to the Serpentess eye-to-eye, out of the same simple, direct consciousness. The Serpentess, who on the other side, is tied to divinity, announces that eating of the tree leads to a different consciousness, higher one, “you shall be like Elohin, knowing good and bad” (Gen 3:5).

In Toratah, it is the Man who first eats of the Tree of Knowledge. Why did he eat from it, in defiance of the divine instruction?  Western civilization has offered answers in different directions, and different degrees of judgmentalism. The fact that Elohin points out the tree from the beginning and directs The Chovah’s attention to its existence coneys, perhaps, some of Her own ambivalence about it.  A large degree of anxiety, along with attraction to the Chovah’s ability to connect with the tree. It seems to Yael and me that the eating of the tree was foreseen from the beginning, that the Serpentess – this umbilical cord – and the whole natural system that Elohin created, lead in the direction of separation, bound up with pain. The cord-cutting of extreme separation between the Chovah and the Serpentess. It can be seen as a tragedy, but on the other hand through the good sides of this process. 

The eating rouses in the Chovah and the Man the awareness of their nakedness, of the simplicity with which they experienced existence up to now and their defenseless. Their being devoid of tools to deal with the complexity through which existence proceeds, with the demanding moral distinction between good and evil. And they feel shame. Why shame? 

The Chovah and the Man seek to place a hedge, a fence, a divide between themselves and existence and defend themselves with…fig leaves. It’s touching. Will five or seven layers of fig leaves work better? And how is it that I suddenly remember the olive leaf that the He-Dove brought to Nochah after the Flood? A leaf that up to now has symbolized life, and now seems to me like a show of protection and concern. Is the He-Dove trying to protect Nochah, soon to leave the womb of the Ark, into life? 

Elohin calls The Chovah and her Man to order. The Chovah points to the Man and he points to the Serpentess, and testifies that “the Serpentess hisiatni and I ate.” In Torato, the Woman says “the Serpent hishiani,” meaning, he tempted and tricked me, and I ate.  But, in vocalizing the letter shin as sin (a common vocalization in Biblical Hebrew), the meaning is reversed into “she carried me, lifted me,” in other words, led me to a higher consciousness. But by now, Elohin is hurting. Badly.  The birth begun with the eating from the tree is at its peak. Elohin cries out in pain: curses the Serpentess – umbilical cord, tied at one end to her, and at the other to her offspring. She cuts it sharply, utterly separating Herself from the Chovah. She makes clear to the Man that from now on he will suffer like Her, in all that’s connected to pregnancy and birth. The more he desires the Chovah, she will rule over him in this process. And the Chovah will suffer from the soil from which she was taken. She will have difficulty producing her food by herself. The insult felt by Elohin, the mother who wished to raise and feed her children inside her, echoes. But by now they know how to eat by themselves and she sends them away from the Garden, which is for fetuses only. 

After the birth, Elohin calms down. In Her maternal mercies, She goes back to caring for her children. She dresses The Chovah and her Man with skin coverings. If only she could cover with the skin of an elephant, and not this skin, so easily penetrated by pain. “Skin coverings,” in Hebrew are kutnot ‘or, and the word ‘or is another Hebrew word that contains something and its opposite:  Blindness, and wakefulness. Elohin doesn’t choose for us between these two states of consciousness. It’s us who will choose whether to eat from the trees and expand our consciousness in the physical and spiritual worlds in which we don’t have enough protection or control. 

But from where does this sense of shame pop up, I stubbornly try to understand? If the process of growing up is natural, maybe covering up with fig leaves isn’t an act of protectiveness but a kind of decoration aiming to attract one’s partner and arouse him/her, Like the mating rituals of animals in nature? So how to understand the use of the word “shame” when understanding the story as not about a sin? 

I read in dictionaries and different articles about the feeling of shame. The common thread through all of them is the awareness of somebody else who is watching me. I try to understand: how can it be that the Woman and the Man didn’t feel shame before eating of the tree, after all they were aware of each other’s existence? It seems the answer is that their awareness of one another was different than the one we experience, as an other who is separate from me. At the moment that the Chovah and the Man met, the Chovah gave the Man a name, Ish, because she saw in him herself, his being created out of her. He was a mirror to her of herself. Immediately afterwards in 2:24, it will be said of their connection “and they will become one flesh” stressing the element of woman-man connection that identifies them as one entity. 

Only the eating from the tree, the tree of discerning multiplicity, the discerning that for every phenomenon in existence there is an aspect that is positive, and negative, is what in the end creates the consciousness of The Chovah and the Man of their separateness. Their being distinct subjects, with dual aspects in themselves, of good and evil. That the other sees! To see themselves anew, through the other’s gaze. Now, shame arises. A most precious feeling – the vessel to moral behavior in a world of multiplicity, in which good and evil are all mixed up together, this world made by Elohin.