On the first day of creation, in the beginning of God’s creating ex nihilo of heaven and everything in it and earth and everything in it –

when the earth was astonishingly void, with darkness over the surface of the abyss, i.e., the water, and God’s spirit, i.e., His intention to make the world into His home, hovered over the surface of the water, ready to initiate this process –

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. This primeval light did not emanate from any specific heavenly body, since the sun and moon were not fixed in their orbits until the fourth day. Also, it did not shine during any fixed portion of the day; darkness and light alternated randomly.

God saw that this primeval light not only illuminated the world, making it physically visible to its future inhabitants, but that it was also “good,” in that it revealed the Divine energy sustaining everything from within. Such an obvious display of Godliness would not allow humanity free choice, so God separated this spiritual “goodness” of the light from its simple, optical dimension and reserved this quality of light as a reward for the righteous in the messianic future. God then saw that the remaining, physical light was good and would enable life to function in an orderly manner were it to shine consistently rather than randomly, so God separated between the light and the darkness, setting aside half the day for each. This ambient light shone for the duration of the creation week, after which only the light emitted by the heavenly bodies shone on earth.

God called to the light and assigned it to the day, and He called to the darkness and assigned it to the night. He assigned the night to the first half of the day, and the day to the second half. Thus, there was first nightfall, followed by the rest of the night, and then morning, followed by the rest of the day; together, night and day constituted one full day.

God said, “Let there be a sky in the midst of the water, and it will separate between atmospheric water and ocean water.”

So God positioned the sky, and thus separated the water below the sky from the water above the sky. And so it was.

God called the sky “Heaven” [Shamayim – a contraction of the words for “suspended water” (sa mayim), “water is there” (sham mayim), and “(made of) fire (e.g., lightning) and water” (eish umayim)]. There was nightfall, followed by the rest of the night, and morning, followed by the rest of the day; together, they constituted a second day.

When the world was created, the perfectly spherical body of earth was completely covered with water. In order to further prepare the world for humanity, God said, “Let the water below the heaven be gathered to one place, the oceans, so dry land should be seen,” and so it was.

God called the dry land “Earth,” and He called the gathering of water “Seas.” Now that the work involving water that began on the second day was completed, God saw that it was good.

God said, “Let the earth begin to sprout vegetation underground: seed-bearing plants and trees whose bark tastes the same as its fruit that produce fruits with seeds according to their species, on the earth.” And so it was. God explicitly commanded only the fruit-trees to bear seeds according to their species; He did not command the seed-bearing plants to do so.

The plants did not strictly adhere to God’s command. The earth gave forth vegetation: plants bearing seeds according to their species, even though God had not explicitly commanded this. The plants reasoned: “If God commanded trees, which grow far apart from each other and are easily distinguishable, to produce only their own species, then we plants, which grow close together and are similar to each other, should certainly only produce our own species.” In contrast to the plants, which did more than God had commanded them, the trees did less than God had commanded them. The trees felt that if they had edible bark, as God had commanded, it would endanger the perpetuation of their species. The earth therefore gave forth trees whose bark did not taste the same as their fruit, only producing fruits containing seeds according to their species. Although the trees’ intentions were honorable, the ground was later punished for not relying on God to ensure the trees’ continued existence. God saw that it was good, despite the trees’ disobedience.

There was nightfall, followed by night, and morning, followed by day; together, they constituted a third day.

God created the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars on the first day; He now placed them in their respective celestial spheres. God said, “Let there be luminaries in the sky to separate between day and night later, after the first creation week. They will serve as signs: their eclipses indicate the times that I have designated for punishment; at these times I will be more likely to mete out punishment for certain misdeeds. The luminaries will also serve for setting the dates of the Jewish festivals, which will occur at specific points in the lunar month and in specific seasons of the solar year. They will also serve for reckoning days and years – one orbit of the sun measuring a day and one turn of the sun through the zodiac measuring a year.

Finally, they will serve as luminaries in the sky, to shine on the earth.” And so it was, as follows:

God positioned the two great luminaries, the sun and the moon. God assigned the greater luminary – the sun – to rule the day, and the smaller luminary – the moon – to rule the night, accompanied by the stars and planets.

God placed them in the sky to shine on the earth,

to rule by day and by night, and to separate between the light and the darkness. God saw that it was good. Nonetheless, the fourth day of the week was made unpropitious to infant health.

There was nightfall, followed by night, and morning, followed by day; together, they constituted a fourth day.

God said, “Let the water teem with low-lying, swimming living creatures, and let fowl issue from the mud of the swamps and fly over the earth across the sky.”

God created the great sea creatures: the male and female leviathan. The leviathans were so large that God foresaw that they would overrun the world if He were to allow them to reproduce, so He immediately killed the female and preserved her flesh for the feast that He will serve the righteous in the messianic future. In addition to these large sea creatures, God created every particular species of low-lying living creatures that swims, which the water produced, and every particular species of winged fowl. God saw that it was good.

God blessed the fish and the birds, saying, “In the future, I will allow humans to eat you and some of you to eat each other. Therefore, be not only fruitful, reproducing yourselves once, but be also prolific, having many offspring throughout your lives. Sea creatures, fill the water in the seas, and let the flying creatures multiply on the land.”

There was nightfall, followed by night, and morning, followed by day; together, they constituted, a fifth day.

God said, “Let the earth bring forth mobile, living creatures according to their species: livestock, low-lying creatures such as insects, worms, ants, beetles, moles, snails, and so forth, and other wildlife of the earth according to their species.” And so it was.

God made the wildlife of the earth according to their species, domestic animals according to their species, and low-lying creatures of the earth according to their species. God saw that it was good, but He did not bless the wildlife to be fruitful and prolific, because He foresaw that the serpent would rebel and did not want to include him in a blessing.

Since the angels are created in God’s likeness in that they possess reason and insight, God presumed that they might object to another form of life also being created in His likeness. He therefore humbly asked their leave to create human beings. God said to His heavenly court, “Let us make a human in our image, i.e., in an upright form reflecting the same hierarchy of faculties I used to create the world and with which I made you, and according to our likeness, i.e., possessing reason and insight. If the humans live up to their Divine image, they will rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the domestic animals, and all the earth, as well as all the low-lying creatures that crawl on the earth. If they do not, they will be inferior to the animals, and the wild beasts will prevail over them.”

So God created the human in his image, i.e., in the mold that God had decided upon: He created him in the image of God, i.e., in a form reflecting the hierarchy of faculties He used to create the world. He also created him according to His likeness, i.e., possessing reason and insight. Whereas God brought all other creatures into being directly by His speech, He created the human being’s body figuratively by “hand,” i.e., by first pouring dirt into a mold. Furthermore, He created them as a single, androgynous being comprising both male and female bodies, attached back to back.

After separating the androgynous human into male and female bodies, as will be described in greater detail further on, God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and prolific. Fill the earth and master it: subdue its apparent antagonism to Divinity and reveal its inner desire to express the Divinity within it. Rule also over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living creatures that crawl on the earth.”

God said to the man and woman, “Behold, although I have made you masters over the animals, I do not permit you to kill them in order to eat them, for I do not want anyone to confuse your dominion over life with Mine. You must always be aware that you are only a creature. Rather, I have only given you every seedbearing plant on the face of the entire earth, and every tree that has seedbearing fruit; they will be yours for food. You may also eat the meat of animals that die naturally.

All plant vegetation will also serve for food for every creature of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for everything that crawls on the ground, which possesses a living soul, but those animals whom I have created as carnivores may kill for food, unlike you.” And so it was.

At the end of the sixth day, God saw all that He had made, and behold, now that He created a human being, it was not only “good” but very good, for only humanity is capable of bringing creation to its fruition and purpose. There was nightfall, followed by night, and morning, followed by day; together, they constituted the sixth day.

Heaven, earth, and all their components were thus completed on the sixth day.

In fact, however, God continued putting the finishing touches on creation up to and into the first moment of the seventh day. Thus, God technically finished His work that He had done on the seventh day, and the seventh day therefore also appeared to be one of the days of creation. But since the amount of work God actually did on the seventh day was infinitesimal and therefore inconsequential, creation is still considered to have been completed on the sixth day. Alternatively, God did not create anything on the seventh day, but rest and spiritual renewal are themselves a necessary ingredient of creation. In this sense, with the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, for He rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had been doing. In fact, the Sabbath’s position at the end of the creation week indicates that the Sabbath is the goal and purpose of creation.

God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. God Himself intentionally rested on the Sabbath, for on the Sabbath God ceased from all His work, including that which God had created and planned to make on that day: On each of the first five days, God created three entities; on the sixth day He created six – three for the sixth day and three that had been “scheduled” to be created on the Sabbath.

The preceding account of creation is the chronicle of how everything in heaven and earth began to function at its proper time, everything having been created on the day that God made earth and heaven, i.e., on the first day.

The creation of the first human beings was mentioned earlier, as a detail in the account of the first seven days. However, because of humanity’s pivotal role in life, the Torah now focuses on its creation in greater detail. No tree of the field was yet on earth, nor had any grass of the field yet sprouted. Although vegetation was created and began to grow underground on the third day, it remained just below the surface of the earth until the sixth day. This was because God had not brought rain upon the earth, for there was no human to work the ground and appreciate the value of rain.

God made a mist rise up from the earth and water the entire surface of the ground.

Using the resulting mud, God formed the human out of dust of the ground by “kneading” it into a body. God blew into his nostrils a soul of life, and the human became a living being, possessing vitality, as do animals, but also possessing the faculties of understanding and speech. God named the human “Adam,” cognate to the word for “earth” (adamah), from which he was made. When Adam realized that the vegetation was waiting for rainfall so it could sprout, he asked God to make it rain. It rained, and the surface of the earth became immediately covered with vegetation in all stages of growth.

After creating Adam, God planted a garden to serve as humanity’s habitat, in the location He had previously designated for that purpose, the eastern part of Eden [“(land of) delight”], and He placed there the human whom He had formed, as will be seen presently. But before continuing the narrative, the Torah digresses to describe the greatness of the Garden of Eden.

The surface of the earth was already covered with vegetation, but now God caused the ground of the Garden of Eden to give forth especially lush growth: every tree that is of pleasing appearance and good for food. The Tree of Life, whose fruit imparted immortality to whoever eats it, was in the center of the garden, as was the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, which was a fig tree. Although it contained all types of fruit trees, the Garden of Eden was mainly an apple orchard.

A river issued from somewhere in Eden to water the garden, and from there it disappeared into subterranean channels, divided, and surfaced outside of Eden and became four riverheads. This river was so rich in minerals and nutriments that even its offshoots endowed the lands they watered with great abundance, as follows:

The name of the first river is the Nile [Pishon, “gushing” or “increasing”]. It floods the land of Egypt annually, this being the basis of Egyptian agriculture. The name is also related to the word for “flax” (pishtan), which is grown in abundance in Egypt and highly valued. This river is the one that traverses the entire land that would later be called Chavilah [from chol, “sand,” i.e., Egypt], where gold is found.

The gold of that land is good. Also found there are crystal and the onyx stone.

The name of the second river is the Gichon [“roaring”]; it is the one that encircles the entire land that would later be called Kush.

The name of the third river is the Tigris [Chidekel, “sharp (tasting) and light”], which flows to the east of the land that would later be called Assyria. The fourth river is the most distinguished of the four, the Euphrates [Perat, “fertile”], for it will serve as one of the boundaries of the Land of Israel. The Tigris and Euphrates are the two rivers that make Mesopotamia fertile.

After digressing to describe the greatness of the Garden of Eden, the Torah recapitulates the narrative: God told the human that He was going to take him from the place where he was created, settle him in the Garden of Eden, and charge him with certain commands that would fulfill both the purpose of his creation and the creation of the whole world. When the human heard this, he did not want to enter the Garden of Eden, because he was intimidated by the overwhelming responsibility involved. God therefore persuaded the human to enter, and He placed him in the Garden of Eden, having motivated him to cultivate it and guard it enthusiastically.

God commanded the human, saying, “Of every tree of the garden – including the Tree of Life – you may eat freely.

But you must not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat of it you will die.”

This human, having been formed by God Himself and created in His image, was so impressively perfect and well-suited for his task of manifesting Divinity on earth that God had to ensure that neither he mistake himself – nor any other creature mistake him – for a second deity. God said, “It is not good that the human be alone, without a helpmate, for this gives the impression that he is a self-sufficient deity, since I, too, have no mate. I will therefore separate his female aspect from him, rendering him incomplete without her and in need of her assistance. I will make this female aspect into a separate being, a compatible helper for him to give him this assistance. If he is deserving, she will help him do good; if not, she will oppose his will.”

Before He separated the primordial human into a man and a woman, God wanted this being to feel the need to be bipartite. He did this in the following way: As described above, God had formed out of the ground every wild beast and every bird of heaven – the birds from the mud of the swamps. Now, God brought them to the human to see what he would name each one, and also placed them under his rule, as He had promised. God brought the animals to the human being in male-female pairs, in order to make him realize that his unitary state was unnatural and to induce him to search for a suitable helpmate from among the animals. God therefore did not present the fish to him to name, since there was no reason to suppose he would consider any of the fish as a possible companion. The human proved to be outstandingly insightful: he deduced what each creature’s name should be based on its characteristics and qualities. Therefore, whatever the human called each living thing remained its name permanently.

The human gave names to every domestic animal and bird of the sky, as well as to all the wild beasts. As God intended, the human noticed that the animals were naturally heterosexual, and examined them all for a suitable helpmate. But the human did not find among the animals any helper who was compatible for himself – whom God had named Adam. This troubled him.

God did not want the human to witness its female side being severed from its male side, for this might lead the male to disrespect the female, so God cast a deep sleep upon the human, and he slept. He then took one of its sides – the female side – off of the male side, and closed the cut made in the flesh in its place.

God built up the side that He had taken from the human into a woman, shaping her so she could carry children within her, and He brought her to the man. Adam and his wife – whom he would later name Eve – were created as mature, twenty-year-old adults, and were exceptionally tall by later standards.

The man said, “This time, in contrast to all the creatures I examined previously, this one is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. She will be called ‘Woman’ [ishah], because she was taken from man [ish].” Thus Adam completed the process of naming all creatures.

God decreed that a man therefore leave his father and his mother and cleave only to his wife – forbidding extramarital relationships and some forms of incest – and that husband and wife combine to become one flesh in their children. After separating them into man and woman, God blessed them, commanding them to procreate, and gave them the fruit of the earth as food, as recounted above.

The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no shame in this. Since they were not conscious of themselves as being independent of God, they considered all their physical desires as a natural part of God’s intention for them. Their consciousness was not tainted by self-interest, so there was nothing to be ashamed of. Adam and Eve engaged in marital relations, and later that day, Eve gave birth to twins – a son and a daughter – as will be described in detail further on.

The Torah now interrupts its description of the events of the sixth day of creation with the account of how Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, which occurred after the creation week, in fact, after Eve’s first two births. It places this narrative here because the antagonist of this episode, the serpent, initiated the train of events that led to the expulsion after observing Adam and Eve engage openly in marital relations. Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild beasts that God had made. He also possessed the means to express his cunningness: he stood upright on his feet and could talk. After observing Adam and Eve engaging in marital relations, he wanted Eve for his wife. He decided the best way to eliminate Adam was to have him eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, since God had made this punishable by death. But he knew he would not be able to entice Adam to do this, so he decided to work through Eve, whom he assumed would serve the fruit to her husband before she ate any of it herself. Although the serpent had seen Adam and Eve eating all kinds of fruits in the garden, he said to the woman in order to open a conversation, “Did God really say, ‘You may not eat from any of the trees of the garden?’”

The woman replied to the serpent, “We may eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden,

but as to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat of it, nor may you touch it, lest you die.’” In fact, God had not forbidden them to touch the fruit, but Eve assumed that on account of the severity of the prohibition of eating the fruit – being a capital offense – it naturally included the prohibition of touching it.

The serpent pushed Eve against the tree, showing her that touching it did not harm her. He said to the woman, “Just as you did not die from touching it, you will certainly not die from eating its fruit!” When Eve saw that touching the tree did not harm her, she could not believe that eating its fruit would kill her.

“Rather,” the serpent continued, “God did not forbid you to eat the fruit for your own good, that is, because He wants you to live forever and He knows that eating the fruit will make you mortal. He forbade it out of jealousy. He does not want you to infringe upon the aspect of perfecting the world that He has reserved for Himself. God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened to your own potential: you will see yourselves as independent agents, masters of your own destiny. You will thus be like God and be able to create worlds, just as He did. This is because you will know good and evil subjectively.”

The serpent persisted in trying to convince Eve, taking care to converse with her when Adam was not present. He eventually convinced the woman, who then saw that the tree was good for eating because it would make them godlike, and desirable to the eyes because it would open their eyes to their own potential, and that the tree was attractive as a means to gain intelligence because it would enable them to know good and evil subjectively. So, she decided to eat the fruit. But to the serpent’s chagrin, she took some of its fruit herself and ate. When Adam came back, she described the effect of eating the fruit to him and reiterated the serpent’s arguments, convincing him to partake as well. Also, even though the serpent had convinced her that the fruit was not deadly, she was still afraid that it might be, and she didn’t want to die and leave Adam alive to marry someone else. Adam knew that the fruit was forbidden, but he was confused by the fact that Eve, whom God had created to help him, was offering it to him. Thus, Eve also gave some to her husband with her, and because of this confusion, he ate. She also fed the fruit to the animals, but it did not have any effect on them.

Then the eyes of both of them were figuratively opened: they suddenly understood that they had lost their original Divine consciousness: they were no longer aware of themselves as a part of God, but as independent beings. They thus realized that they were figuratively naked, i.e., stripped of the one commandment God had given them, which was precisely to avoid descending to this level of consciousness. They sewed together leaves that they plucked from a fig tree (since the Tree of Knowledge was this type of tree), and made themselves loincloths.

Adam and Eve would have tried to clothe themselves further, but just then, at 4:00 PM, they heard the voice of God, which was moving about in the garden in the direction of day’s end. Attempting to quickly cover their remaining nakedness, the man and his wife hid themselves from God among the trees of the garden.

God knew where Adam was, but in order to open the conversation and give him the opportunity to express remorse, He called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

He replied, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I am naked, so I hid.”

God obviously knew that Adam and Eve had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but in order to give Adam another chance to confess and express remorse over his sin, He said, “Who told you that you are naked and that there is any shame in this? Did you eat of the tree from which I commanded you not to eat? You obviously did, otherwise you would not have felt any shame in being naked.”

But rather than admitting his error in judgment, Adam rationalized his behavior by blaming God. The man replied, “The woman whom You gave to be with me and help me – she gave me one of the fruits of the tree, and I ate. I assumed that since You created her to help me, she would not lead me astray.” But by shifting the blame to Eve, Adam only committed a further offense: ingratitude for God’s goodness in giving him a wife. Nonetheless, because he and Eve expressed remorse, and because Adam had at least a partial excuse, God commuted their sentence and did not make them die on the very day they ate the fruit; He only made them mortal.

God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” giving her the chance to realize that it was possible to repent and repair the damage that had been done. But the woman, too, tried to shift the blame. She replied, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

God did not address any question to the serpent, so as not to allow him to exonerate himself by pointing out that Eve should have had the sense to know that God’s command should override the serpent’s enticements. Rather, God said immediately to the serpent, “I distinguished you above the other animals by giving you the power of speech, but you misused it by enticing Eve to sin. Because you did this, I will repay you measure for measure: I will entirely rescind your ability to speak, and thus, instead of being the most gifted of animals, you are now the most accursed of all domestic animals and all wildlife. Not only will you lose your natural ability to speak; you will even lose your ability to make sounds like other animals: your voice will be reduced to a hiss. Furthermore, I will take away your feet so from now on, you will move on your belly, and you will appear to eat dust all the days of your life.” This is an idiom for being scorned. Because it abused its superior gifts that had made it the most preeminent of the animals, the serpent was reduced to being the lowliest animal.

“You wanted to take Eve as your wife; instead, I will plant hatred between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. They will pound you on the head, and you will hiss as you bite them in the heel.”

To the woman He said, “I will greatly increase your difficulty in raising children and in your pregnancy from now on.” Eve already had children, so she would experience the pain of raising them before the pains of her next pregnancy; this is why God mentioned child rearing before pregnancy and birth. “You will give birth to children in anguish. Furthermore, your longing will be for your husband, but despite your longing for him, he will dominate you: You will be embarrassed to ask him explicitly to have marital relations with you.”

And to Adam He said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate of the tree about which I commanded you – saying, ‘Do not eat from it’ – the earth, from which you were created and therefore is somewhat responsible for your character, will be cursed because of you. I will simultaneously punish it now for not producing trees whose bark tastes the same as their fruit. It will produce flies, fleas, and ants; because of this you will produce food from it with difficulty all the days of your life.

Specifically, when you plant grain, legumes, or vegetables, the earth will bring forth thorns and thistles for you, and you will have to eat the grass of the field, i.e., the thorns and thistles that will grow when you plant grain, because not enough grain will grow for you to live on. You will have to cook these weeds and eat them, too.” This situation persisted until Noah’s generation.

“You will eat bread only by the sweat of your brow, until you return to the ground, for you were taken from it. For you are dust, and as you will now be mortal, you will return to dust.” At this point, the world descended from its original lofty, pristine spiritual state. The major purpose of life from this point on became to rectify the effects of Adam and Eve’s sin and restore reality to its original state.

The narrative now returns to where it left off before the digression of the episode of the Tree of Knowledge. After Eve gave birth to her first children, Adam gave her an additional name. Besides describing her as “woman,” indicating her compatibility with “man,” the man now named his wife also “Eve” [Chavah], because she was and would be the mother of all the living [chai], i.e., all future generations. She not only gives birth to her children, but also nurtures them until they are independent, since they cannot survive without her care.

Having concluded its account of the sixth day of creation, the narrative continues with the aftermath of the incident of the Tree of Knowledge. God was about to banish Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, but He preceded this act of judgment with an act of mercy, in order to show that even His judgments are in truth expressions of His mercy. Adam and Eve had already made loincloths out of fig leaves, but had not had a chance to make garments to clothe themselves fully. God therefore made skin-garments for Adam and his wife. These were miraculously skin-tight garments that fit Adam and Eve as closely as their own fingernails, and were therefore perfectly comfortable. God Himself clothed them in these garments, because only He could put them on them. Alternatively, these were warm and soft garments made out of animal fur, and even though Adam and Eve could have made and put on such garments by themselves, God made these garments and clothed Adam and Eve in them as an act of kindness.

God said, “Behold, just as I am unique in the heavens, so are Adam and Eve unique on earth, in that they alone know good and evil subjectively, even though they are each incomplete by themselves. Now that the man has become like the Unique One among us, knowing good and evil, what if he should stretch forth his hand and also take fruit from the Tree of Life and eat it, and live forever?! If he lives forever he might appear to the rest of creation to be a second deity.”

God thereupon banished him and his family from the Garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he was taken.

He drove the man out, and Adam and his family settled just east of the Garden of Eden. God stationed to the east of the Garden of Eden the cherubim, angels of destruction, equipped with the revolving sword blade, which appeared to be flashing and therefore looked frightening, to guard the path to the Tree of Life against entry.

Adam separated from Eve after having disobeyed God’s commandment not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. But, as mentioned above, the man had known his wife Eve carnally prior to their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and when he did so, she conceived and later that day gave birth to twins, a son and a daughter. This phenomenon of short pregnancy will again become the norm in the messianic age. She named the son Cain [Kayin], saying, “I have acquired [kaniti] a man together with GOD.” She expressed her delight in being a partner with God in the creation of a human being. This was the first time this had occurred, for she and Adam had been created solely by God Himself.

Soon after giving birth to Cain and his twin sister, she conceived and gave birth again – to his brother Abel and two twin sisters. It was only after all five children were born that the serpent succeeded in persuading Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and God banished Adam and his family from the Garden of Eden. When they matured, the boys married their twin sisters. Although incest was forbidden to Adam and his descendants, God made an exception and allowed Cain and Abel to marry their sisters in order to perpetuate the human race. Although God intended the human race to be farmers, Abel instead became a shepherd, for he did not want to work the ground, since God had cursed it due to Adam’s sin. In contrast, Cain was not fazed by this curse; he became a worker of the soil.

In the course of time, Cain and Abel decided to bring offerings to God. Cain, being the firstborn, brought his offering first. Cain brought some of the inferior produce of the choicest species of the ground he was cultivating, flaxseed, as an offering to GOD. Cain reasoned that it was important to offer the choicest species possible, while the actual quality of the offering was nonessential.

Abel also offered up some of the firstborn of his flock, from the fattest ones. In contrast to Cain, Abel reasoned that the particular species offered up was not important, and therefore did not offer up one of the most impressive animals he raised – a cow or bull – but merely a sheep. Rather, he felt that it was important to offer up the best of whatever species was selected. He was correct, so GOD paid heed to Abel and his offering – fire descended from heaven and consumed it –

but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed. Cain was sorely grieved and downcast. Even after he saw that God had accepted Abel’s offering of the best of the particular species he had chosen to offer, Cain stubbornly refused to acknowledge that he had not acted properly.

GOD said to Cain, consoling him, “Why are you grieved? Why are you downcast?

After all, if you improve your actions, you will be forgiven for your previous, misguided behavior. But if you do not improve yourself during your lifetime and clean your record, you will find that your sin is crouching at the door of your grave, so to speak, and you will have to be cleansed of it in your afterlife. Your evil inclination continuously lusts after you, seeking to make you sin, but you can dominate it.” But Cain still refused to admit that he had acted wrongly.

Cain then had words with his brother Abel, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. He stabbed him all over his body, for he did not know which blow would prove fatal.

God knew what had happened, but in order to open the conversation and give Cain the opportunity to confess his sin and repent, GOD asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain did not take advantage of the opportunity God was giving him. He replied, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?!”

God said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood and the blood of the souls who could have been his descendants are crying out to Me from the ground!

So now you will be cursed by having to work the ground even harder than you have to already. The ground will be cursed more than the ground has already been cursed, because it opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

When you work the ground, it will no longer give you its full fertile strength. It will produce even less for you than before. Furthermore, you will be a perpetual wanderer in the world; I will not allow you to settle in one place.”

Hearing this, Cain repented somewhat, and said to GOD, “Is my sin too great for You to bear? Can You not overlook it?

Behold, today You have banished me from the face of the earth – but can I be hidden from Your presence?! I am to be a perpetual wanderer in the world, and whoever among the future inhabitants of the earth finds me will kill me because they know that I murdered my brother, making me liable to the death penalty. And moreover, whoever among the animals finds me will kill me, because when I sinned, my Divine image was diminished and the animals no longer fear me.”

GOD said to him, “Therefore, because you are afraid of what people will do, let it be known that whoever kills Cain will be punished! No one should take it upon himself to punish Cain for his sin, for vengeance for this sin will be exacted only after seven generations.” To publicize this oath, GOD placed a mark – a letter of His Name – on Cain’s forehead, so that whoever found him would not kill him. As for Cain’s fear of the animals, GOD placed a mark on Cain – He restored his Divine image – so that whoever among the animals found him would not kill him.

But Cain did not repent fully, even after God quieted his fears. Rather, Cain left GOD’s presence with feigned humility. Wherever he went, the earth trembled beneath him, and people said, “Stay away from him, for he killed his brother.” Instead of wandering the earth as he was commanded to, Cain settled in Nod [from nad, “wanderer”], to the east of Eden, where his father Adam had settled after being banished from the Garden of Eden. God had designated this place as a refuge for murderers, so Cain was confident that he would be safe there.

Cain knew his wife – his twin sister – carnally, and she conceived and gave birth to Chanoch [“educated”]. Cain wished to demonstrate that even though God had punished him to be a perpetual wanderer, this punishment did not extend to his progeny, who would indeed be able to attain permanence and comfort in this world and contribute toward the building of civilization. So he became a builder of a city: he and his relatives built the first city. In order to further cement the permanence of his bloodline, he gave the city he built the same name as his son, Chanoch, in order to perpetuate his son’s memory after he would die.

Irad was born to Chanoch; Irad was the father of Mechuya’el [“wiped out by God”]; Mechuya’el was the father of Metusha’el [“torn out by God”]; and Metusha’el was the father of Lemech. In contrast to Cain’s hopes, the names his progeny chose to give their children reflected their increasingly anti-Divine philosophy of life.

By this time, society’s mores had degenerated to the point that men were objectifying female beauty and depersonalizing women. It became customary for men to marry one woman solely for her beauty and a second woman for the purpose of procreation. The first wife would be given a contraceptive drug in order that pregnancy and childbearing not mar her beauty. The husband would spend his time chiefly with her, ignoring his second wife. In accord with this custom, Lemech married two women. The name of the first was Adah [“removed”]; she was the wife designated solely for procreation and was “removed” from Lemech’s daily company. The name of the second was Tzilah [from tzeil, “shadow”]; she was the wife designated solely for carnal relations, so she accompanied him everywhere and in this way was always “in his shadow.”

Adah gave birth to Yaval; he was the forerunner of all those who live in tents and keep herds, periodically moving to new locations in search of new pastures for their herds to graze. He was the first to build temples for idol worship.

His brother’s name was Yuval; he was the forerunner of all those who play the harp and flute for idolatrous purposes.

Even though she took contraceptives, Tzilah also gave birth to a son, Tuval-Cain [“the one who perfects (the art of) Cain”], who sharpened all copper and iron tools, thereby furnishing murderers with efficient weapons. Tuval-Cain’s sister was Na’amah [“pleasant”], who married Noah.

Counting Cain as the first generation, Lemech was the sixth, and his children were the seventh. Once Lemech’s children were born, it was time for vengeance to be exacted from Cain. Lemech was blind and his son, Tuval-Cain, would lead him. Once, in (or just before) the year 130, Tuval-Cain saw Cain and mistook him for a wild animal. Frightened, he told Lemech to shoot an arrow at Cain; Lemech did so and killed him. When Lemech learned what he had done, he clapped his hands together in grief, but in doing so, he struck his son Tuval-Cain, killing him, too. Lemech’s wives, in anger, refused to engage in marital relations with him anymore. Lemech said to his wives, “Adah and Tzilah, hear my voice; wives of Lemech, listen to my speech. Did I kill a man [Cain] by my wound, and a child [Tuval-Cain] by my bruise?! Did I kill them intentionally?!

If revenge against Cain, who committed murder, was exacted after seven generations, then for me, Lemech, who only committed manslaughter, God’s punishment should surely be postponed for many times seven generations! You therefore do not have to worry that your children will be punished on my account.”

Adam knew his wife carnally again – now with greater passion than before – and she gave birth to a son. She named him Seth [Sheit], saying, “because God has granted [shat] me other offspring in place of Abel, whom Cain killed.”

In the year 235, a son was also born to Seth; Seth named him Enosh. Then, during Enosh’s lifetime, the name of GOD was invoked profanely.

The following is the record of the descendants of Adam, which begins on the day that God created Adam, for his first children were born on the same day he was created. God made him in the likeness of God. For the first ten generations, Adam’s descendants lived extraordinarily long, relative to later generations. This is because during this era, God provided the world with His beneficence without regard to human merit. This would change afterward, as will be recounted later.

He created Adam first as an androgynous being, male and female. He blessed both aspects of this first human being and named them together Adam on the day that they were created in this form. Eve was then separated from the male half of this being, who retained the name “Adam.”

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his likeness and form, and he named him Seth.

Adam lived 800 years after he had Seth, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days that Adam lived came to 930 years, and he died in the year 930.

When Seth had lived 105 years, in the year 235, he had a son, Enosh.

Seth lived 807 years after he had Enosh, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Seth came to 912 years, and he died in the year 1042.

When Enosh had lived 90 years, in the year 325, he had a son, Keinan.

Enosh lived 815 years after he had Keinan, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Enosh came to 905 years, and he died in the year 1140.

When Keinan had lived 70 years, in the year 395, he had a son, Mahalal’el.

Keinan lived 840 years after he had Mahalal’el, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Keinan came to 910 years, and he died in the year 1235.

When Mahalal’el had lived 65 years, in the year 460, he had a son, Yered.

Mahalal’el lived 830 years after he had Yered, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Mahalal’el came to 895 years, and he died in the year 1290.

When Yered had lived 162 years, in the year 622, he had a son, Enoch.

Yered lived 800 years after he had Enoch, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Yered came to 962 years, and he died in the year 1422.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, in the year 687, he had a son, Methuselah.

Unlike the rest of humanity in this era, Enoch walked with God, i.e., he was righteous. He lived for 300 years after he had Methuselah, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Enoch came to 365 years in the year 987.

Enoch walked with God, but because God saw that he would no longer be able to resist the temptation to sin, He rewarded him for resisting temptation until this point in his life by removing him from the world earlier than he would have otherwise died. Thus, he was no longer in the physical world and could not live out his natural life, because God had taken him before his time.

When Methuselah had lived 187 years, in the year 874, he had a son, Lemech.

Methuselah lived 782 years after he had Lemech, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Methuselah came to 969 years, and he died in the year 1656.

When Lemech had lived 182 years, in the year 1056, he had a son whom God would choose to rebuild the world after the future Flood.

Lemech prophetically named him Noah [Noach], saying, “This one will bring us relief [yenachamenu] from our work and from the anguish of our hands caused by the soil that GOD has cursed.” Noah invented the plow, and thus enabled humanity to reap benefit from the soil in a way not possible previously. Furthermore, God’s curse that the ground produce thorns and thistles when grain, legumes, and vegetables were planted expired in Noah’s generation, and the earth once again produced what was planted in it.

Lemech lived 595 years after he had Noah, during which he had other sons and daughters.

All the days of Lemech came to 777 years, and he died in the year 1651.

In the year 1556, when Noah was 500 years old, he began to have children. Noah had a son, Shem – who was the ancestor of Abraham, the first Jew, and therefore is mentioned first – as well as Shem’s younger brother, Ham, and his older brother, Japheth. Japheth was born first, in the year 1556; Shem was born second, in the year 1558; and Ham was the youngest.

The Torah now backtracks in order to recount additional details about how the world became increasingly corrupt during the ten generations from Adam to Noah. During these generations, a race of unusually tall people developed. Their exaggerated physicality was accompanied by an exaggerated emphasis on life’s physical dimension and consequent disregard of spiritual and moral concerns. Because of their impressive height and physical prowess, they became the natural leaders of society as it increasingly valued physical over moral excellence. Now when humanity began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them,

the princes and judges of this giant race saw how pretty the girls were, and they took themselves wives from whomever they chose. They would take brides from their wedding ceremonies and have carnal relations with them before their grooms did. They also engaged in other forbidden carnal relations: adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality. Over time, this degenerate behavior became so pervasive that God considered wiping out humanity.

By the year 1536, the situation had reached the point where GOD said, “My spirit will not continue to deliberate over humanity forever, since they are mere flesh and nonetheless behave arrogantly. I decree that they will have 120 years to repent; if they do not, I will wipe them out.” In order to encourage them to repent, God commanded Noah to begin building an ark, as will be recounted later.

The corrupt princes and judges of the race of giants became known as the “fallen ones,” for they both “fell,” i.e., were wiped out, and caused others to “fall,” i.e., be wiped out because of their misdeeds. They were on the earth in those early days, i.e., in the days of Enosh and the initial descendants of Cain. Even though they witnessed the partial flooding of the world, they did not heed this warning, but persisted in their wickedness. Thus, their wicked race also continued later – after Enosh’s time – for these princes and judges continued to consort with whichever women they pleased and had children through them, whom they then inculcated with their wicked ways. These princes were the mighty and rebellious ones of old, men whose depravity was indicated by their names, which expressed their anti-Divine philosophy and lifestyle. The idolatry and carnal excesses of both the angelic giants and the princes and judges of the mortal giants led them into disrespect for property rights, as well, and thus the foundations of society – honesty, integrity, and justice – were undermined and replaced by dishonesty, corruption, and larceny. Their behavior made the world into an uncivilized, frightening place in which to live.

From all this, after the 120-year period of waiting, GOD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and that every impulse of the thoughts of his heart was only for evil, all day long. In particular, their lawless behavior toward each other all but negated the justification for the world’s existence, since God intended the world to function in a moral fashion.

GOD was only comforted by the fact that He created humanity as earthly beings, for at least that way they could not incite the angels to rebel against Him, as well. In His heart, God decided to grieve humanity. Because of their misdeeds, GOD changed His attitude toward the fact that He had made humanity on earth: instead of relating to them through mercy, He evaluated them in terms of judgment, and found them overwhelmingly unworthy and deserving to be destroyed. But His heart was nevertheless pained over the prospect of destroying all humanity.

So GOD said, “Instead of destroying humanity altogether, I will only dissolve the majority of humanity, whom I created out of dirt, from the face of the earth, by flooding the world with water, which will disintegrate their flesh and allow Me to save select individuals by protecting them from the water. Furthermore, I will not only destroy most of humanity but also virtually all walking animals, crawling creatures, and even birds of the sky, because they also engaged in cross-species breeding. (Even had the animals not become degenerate, I would have to eliminate them, for I created them for the sake of humanity, so if I wipe out most of humanity, they are superfluous. Since the fish did not crossbreed, they will all be spared.) For I have changed My mind from My previous thought to destroy them altogether, for after all, I created them. Since they are My creations, they should be preserved to whatever extent possible. Furthermore, it is because the world is innately not conducive to repentance that humanity did not repent properly during all these years. I will therefore ‘re-create’ the world such that it is easier to refine reality and to repent.”

Out of the entire human race, only Noah found favor in the eyes of GOD. He and his family were righteous, so God selected them to be the ones to survive the impending flood, ensure the survival of the doomed animal species, and regenerate humanity afterwards.