es the service of man difficult: a special instruction for women.
Likkutei Sichos Vol. 3 – Bereishis
1. Parshas Bereishis, which is read at the end of the month of Tishrei — the beginning of the year — holds instructions for the entire year.
One of the matters related in this sidrah concerns the first mitzvah and command of G‑d: G‑d's instruction to Adam HaRishon that he not eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
As is understood from the Midrash1, the command to Adam HaRishon applied only to the first day of his creation. And from the details of what took place on the sixth day of creation — the day on which man was created — it emerges that the command to Adam HaRishon not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge was for only three hours: G‑d's instruction came "in the ninth hour"2, nine hours into the day, and three hours later, when the day ended and Shabbos began, the prohibition was lifted. Nevertheless, Adam HaRishon could not hold himself back, and he transgressed the command.
The question arises: Adam HaRishon was, after all, "the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He," and he heard the command from G‑d Himself. How, then, could he not bring himself to hold back — to obey this command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge for a mere three hours? True, the sin of the Tree of Knowledge contains many secrets of the Torah; but "a verse never departs from its plain meaning"3. So how did Adam HaRishon come to stumble?
2. The explanation is as follows:
The entire aim of the yetzer hara is that a person should do the opposite of G‑d's will. With all of its arguments — that a person should commit a sin, or not do a mitzvah, because it involves difficulties and is a great test — it is after one thing only: that the person transgress G‑d's will.
Therefore, the more a mitzvah matters (whether because of the person, the place or the time)4, the greater the efforts the yetzer hara makes to keep him from it. And although in truth the person could fulfill the mitzvah quite easily, since its fulfillment matters so much, the yetzer hara comes with all sorts of claims and reasonings so as not to let him carry out the Supreme Will.
Everyone feels this in himself from time to time: there are matters in the observance of Torah and mitzvos which, by logic, ought to be much easier to fulfill than other matters that involve great effort — yet he feels that it is precisely the easier matters that come to him with great difficulty. The reason, as said above, is that the yetzer hara applies itself more strongly to the matters that are of greater consequence to the person at that time, and sets greater difficulties against them.
It can even happen that the matters that come harder are a rabbinic mitzvah or merely a custom, while the others, which come to him more easily, are a Torah commandment — yet for his soul it is precisely the rabbinic mitzvos or the customs that matter most (at that time). As is explained in Chassidus5 on the saying6 "In what was your father most careful?": every soul has certain mitzvos that are especially bound up with its mission below in the body, and these mitzvos it must observe with the greatest care, more than all the other mitzvos in which it is equal to every Jew. Therefore the yetzer hara raises all kinds of difficulties against precisely these mitzvos, because it knows that they matter most of all.
This is also one of the explanations of the saying of our Sages7, "Whoever is greater than his fellow, his yetzer is greater than his": the greater a person is, the more his mitzvos matter, and so the yetzer hara applies itself to him all the more. (Another reason: so that there be free choice, the forces opposed to holiness must be in the same measure and weight as the forces of holiness. Therefore one who is "greater than his fellow," and has more forces of holiness, is also one whose "yetzer is greater than his" — his yetzer hara, too, has greater forces.)
And this is why Adam HaRishon could not master himself and ate from the Tree of Knowledge. He was, after all, "the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He," and "whoever is greater than his fellow, his yetzer is greater than his" — all the more so since the command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge mattered so greatly, as we see from the great fall that came from this very sin, "to him, to his descendants and to their descendants until the end of all generations." Therefore the yetzer hara — which was then clothed in the serpent8 — set upon Adam with all its strength in this sin and enticed him to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
3. Our Sages say that when G‑d gave the Torah He instructed Moshe Rabbeinu9, "So shall you say to the house of Yaakov" — which our Sages explain10 as "these are the women": he was to speak of receiving the Torah to the women first. This was to guard against the failure that occurred in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, where only Adam HaRishon heard the command from G‑d's own mouth, and not Chavah — and that is what opened the way to the damage. Even though of Chavah it is written "and He built the rib" — G‑d Himself built her — and she was formed from "one of the ribs" of Adam HaRishon, who was "the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He," nevertheless, because she had not heard the command from G‑d Himself, she could add to it the words "nor shall you touch it," which brought about the sin of the Tree of Knowledge11. Had the command been addressed to her directly as well, she would have prevailed upon Adam HaRishon too not to stumble in this sin, despite all the difficulties the yetzer hara raised — as we see from the saying of our Sages about the Giving of the Torah, cited above12.
4. As said above, the stories of the Torah (the word "Torah" derives from "hora'ah," instruction)13 in Parshas Bereishis are general instructions for the entire year. So, too, what was said above is an instruction for how a Jewish home must be conducted.
Every Jewish home must be a "small Sanctuary," so that G‑d can say of the home, "and I will dwell among them" — I will rest there. And since the conduct of the home depends on the akeres habayis, the mainstay of the home, one must work with her especially — not by way of "I have decreed a decree," but in ways of pleasantness and ways of peace14 — that she should have a taste and a delight in Yiddishkeit. Through this she will protect the entire home, her husband too, from stumbling. As said above: had Chavah herself heard the command from G‑d, not only would she not have brought about any stumbling — on the contrary, she would have protected Adam too from the serpent's persuasion.
Therefore the first thing must be "So shall you say to the house of Yaakov" — to devote oneself to the members of one's household. As in the well-known saying of the Rebbe (the Rebbe Rashab) of blessed memory15: just as putting on tefillin every day is a Torah commandment upon every Jew, without distinction between a great Torah scholar and a simple person, so is it an absolute obligation upon every Jew to spend half an hour every day thinking about the education of children, and to do everything in his power — and beyond his power — to bring the children to walk in the path in which they are being guided.
And then the "and tell the children of Israel" will also be fulfilled. For then the wife will not merely not be "against him" — she will not hinder her husband — but on the contrary, she will be a "helper"16 to him, to the point of helping him with her special quality, "an additional measure of understanding was given to the woman more than to the man"17. And she will bring about in the entire home that "and I will dwell among them" can be there.
This is also the wording of the wedding blessing: "As You gladdened Your creations in the Garden of Eden of old" (may G‑d gladden the bride and groom "as You once gladdened Your human creations in the Garden of Eden"). At first glance, what does the word "of old" add? Everyone knows that Adam and Chavah were in the Garden of Eden long ago, many years earlier! Rather, "of old" refers to the time in the Garden of Eden — "of old," as they were at the very beginning, before the sin.
And this is what we wish the young couple: that their life be like that of Adam and Chavah before the sin. There should be no "against him," but on the contrary, a "helper"; and the home should be conducted in the manner of "and I will dwell among them" — "As You gladdened Your creations in the Garden of Eden of old."
(From the sichah of Simchas Torah, 5723)
Footnotes
1) See Bereishis Rabbah 21:7; Shach on the Torah; Likkutei Torah, beginning of Parshas Kedoshim.
2) Sanhedrin 38b.
3) Shabbos 63a.
4) See Sanhedrin 97a: "The place, and Truth is its name," etc.; Likkutei Dibburim vol. 1, 19 Kislev 5693, §5 (p. 29).
5) Iggeres HaKodesh, end of §7; Kuntres 12 Tammuz 5708 (Sefer HaMaamarim 5708, p. 240); sichah of Shushan Purim 5708 (Sefer HaSichos 5708, p. 22).
6) Shabbos 118b.
7) Sukkah 52a.
8) Zohar, Bereishis 35b; Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer ch. 13.
9) Shemos 19:3.
10) Mechilta, cited in Rashi there.
11) Bereishis Rabbah 19:4.
12) See also Sanhedrin 110a, beginning.
13) Zohar III, 53b.
14) See Gittin 6b, end.
15) Hayom Yom, 22 Teves.
16) See Yevamos 63a.
17) Niddah 45b.
Key Lesson
The yetzer hara fights hardest precisely where a mitzvah matters most — which is why even Adam HaRishon fell. The safeguard G‑d chose at Sinai was to speak to the women first: a Jewish home becomes a "small Sanctuary" when the akeres habayis is drawn, through pleasantness, to delight in Yiddishkeit, and when every Jew gives daily thought and effort to the chinuch of his children.