“And the Lord God said: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help made against him.’”
Man Needs a Woman to Become an Independent Creature
It is not good for man, who was created in God’s image and likeness, to have only the Creator’s power and nothing of man himself (meaning his egoistic nature). That is, it is not good that he is stifled by the Light, and has no free will. Bit by bit, his nature must be awakened, his ego revealed to the extent that he can control it. Thus, his ego would stand “behind him.” That is to say, the ego could be utilized, but would remain under his control.
The “woman in us” is the embodiment of this controlled ego.
He resides in the Creator’s Garden of Eden and is completely under the authority of the Light. Man exists in a kind of narcotic state, but he must ultimately become free, for the Creator’s objective was to make a creature equal to Him, rather than a slave to the Light. It follows that sooner or later, man must begin to activate his ego and correct it.
The “Rib,” the Place Where Opposites Connect
“He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, He made a woman, and brought her unto the man.”
A rib is a “place” in the chest where the altruistic desire in us connects to the egoistic desire.
In each of our desires is a vulnerable, but absolutely essential “place.” It is the moment of doubt and struggle, when the temptation arises to take for yourself, even though you’ve already decided to “start a new life” and be exclusively in bestowal. This is the material from which “your inner woman” is made, and it exists in every one of us. This material is that very common quality that exists between the desire to bestow and the desire to receive.
The male desire within you strives to receive spiritual pleasure by bestowing upon others, upon the Creator. It waits for the moment when man declares, “I will take only the bare essentials for myself, and gladly bestow everything else to the Creator.”
The female desire within you strives to receive spiritual pleasure, but for its own delight, realizing that this pleasure is the greatest in existence. This common point is called “receiving pleasure,” and the only difference is who you are fulfilling with this action: yourself or others.
If the desire to receive spiritual pleasure for self (female desire) is not controlled by the male desire to bestow, it becomes man’s demise (in the spiritual sense).
Reaching Eternity through “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”
Try to understand that what you see and feel is imaginary. In fact, besides you, there is only the Creator. “For the Creator’s sake” and “for others’ sake” are the exact same thing. Until you reach the state of the end of correction, this illusion that others exist will persist. But then you will see that there are no “others”; there is only “me and the Creator.”
Advancement can be infinite, as your soul has no limitation with respect to capacity, for through the soul you connect to others. The soul is the communicator with other souls. One can connect all of humanity to himself – to feel, think and understand in their stead. You need only “exit” yourself and “enter” them.
This is the essence of the Biblical principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What is our true egoism? It is when you love yourself egoistically, willing to disregard the whole world just to grab something for yourself. If you can exit yourself and give up all your possessions, you will begin to feel other people and become eternal.
Taking off the Clothing in Order to Reach Our Origin
To summarize, the manifestation of an egoistic quality in Adam, which he had never felt before, is the birth of a “woman,” the additional, external form called “Eve.” Adam and Eve are the same flesh, in that they create between them a combination that has a right to exist independently.
Our nature is egoistic and must be corrected. The connection to the earth is the “woman” to which “man” attaches, becoming one flesh with her, meaning drawing to himself egoistic desires, but not yet exposing them. Neither the man nor the woman have yet discovered themselves: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
The term “naked” alludes to the absence of “clothes” – that is, egoistic desires that coat man, clothes-like, concealing his true, primordial yearning for the spiritual world.
By donning these “clothes” – newer and newer egoistic desires – man distances himself from the Creator, although the spiritual basis always remains in him. He simply needs to begin to remove these layers and always strive for the root – the Creator who created us all. This is exactly what we are now doing.
“What Is Man and Woman in the Bible?” is based on the book, The Secrets of the Eternal Book: The Meaning of the Stories of the Pentateuch by Semion Vinokur.
