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Hebrew
poet T. Carmi's Havvah Yad'ah ("Eve Knew") presents a new
version of the Adam and Eve story that significantly transforms the biblical
view of heterosexual relations into one more accurately reflecting that
of the contemporary poet. In Genesis 3, which has often been read as an
allegory of sexual initiation, the serpent seduces Eve into eating the forbidden
fruit of "the tree of knowledge of good and bad," and Eve then
gives the fruit to Adam. In response to their defiance, God curses first
the serpent and then Adam and Eve, after which He expels the first man and
woman from the Garden of Eden. In Carmi's poem, Eve is portrayed as a more
positive character, and the expulsion from Eden is really not all that tragic.
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Eve
Knew
Eve
knew what was hidden in the apple.
She wasn't born yesterday.
From between Adam's ribs
She observed the order of creation,
Listening to the grasses and crawling things.
Eve knew what was
hidden in the apple.
The waters raged, the moon grew black.
The letters brandished their thorns,
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The
beasts of the fields devoured their names
And the voice said: It is good.
Eve
knew what was hidden in the apple.
It is good! It is good! And again: It is good!
A torrent of goodness:
A model
garden, watered, sated,
An exemplary mother. Happy are all living things!
Eve
knew what was hidden in the apple.
In the light of day, and with a clear mind,
Her naked body darkening the sun,
She released the Big Worm
To gnaw at the roots of trees.
Happy
ending:
Adam, his sweat flowing like a river,
Confessed by the light of the sword
That he was out of names, that the good
Has exhausted his strength.
And that it is good.
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A number of the images found in the biblical text are preserved in Carmi's
poem: Adam, Eve, fruit, trees, the seat of Adam, and the sword that prevented
Adam and Eve from returning to Eden. The poem, however, suggests a very different
understanding of sexuality than does the Bible. In the latter, the seduction
of Eve by the phallic-like serpent and its consequences seem to portray sexuality
as an irresistible pleasure that the maturing human is driven to seize, only
to find it accompanied by painful responsibilities.
In Carmi's
poem, not the serpent, but Eve, is the active force. She already has the knowledge
of sexuality contained in the forbidden fruit (Havvah yad'ah), placing her
on a divine level, or at least on a level above that of the biblical Adam;
she recognizes sexuality even before Adam sexually "knows" her ("Now
the man knew his wife Eve," veha'adam yada' et havvah ishto.[*]
Here sexuality is good and liberating, a force known instinctively by women
for whom sensuality is as important an aspect of life as are the responsibilities
to which men are committed.
Carmi's version
of the Garden of Eden story critiques and rejects the biblical view of sexuality
as presented Genesis 3. In his alternative view Eve does not seduce Adam away
from his responsibility to divine authority, but rather reveals to him the
greatest pleasure human beings can experience.
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Poet,
editor and professor of literature, T. Carmi (1925-1994) was born and
educated in New York, and emigrated to Israel in 1947. He was the publisher
of The Modern Hebrew Poem (1965), and editor/translator of the
classic anthology, The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse.
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[*]
Genesis
4:1 [back]
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 From:
David
C. Jacobson, Does David Still Play Before You? Israeli Poetry and
the Bible (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997), pp.194-196
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