Woman 1.0 was a harsh and judgmental version, not at all user-friendly. The only hint to her in Genesis is Adam's enigmatic dual metaphor, "This time [she is] a bone from my bones, flesh from my flesh." The "bone of my bones"—her name was Lilith, with a personality as inflexible as a dry bone. Adam dumped that one fast.
"Flesh from my flesh" refers to Woman 2.0, a.k.a. Chava (somehow that became "Eve" in English). She was more easy-going, less critical, far more responsive—as flesh is relative to bones. This worked really well for a long-term relationship. (You can't say "user-friendly" on 2.0, since this is more of an interactive, client-to-client relationship. We'll get to that soon.)
1.0 relied on technology from the World of TohuThe two versions had much to do with the technology implemented. 1.0 relied on technology from the World of Tohu. That's a world, previous to ours, which is built on absolutes. Absolute light, absolute darkness, absolute kindness and...absolute harshness.
Tohu Technology was an all around failure, resulting in a major system crash throughout the cosmos. In the aftermath—and pretty much in response to that disaster—the World of Tikkun was formed.
In Tikkun, everything was balanced and harmonized in a holistic and relativistic system. Light was tempered with darkness and darkness with light. Kindness knew what it means to be harsh—and could even use that harshness if necessary to attain even greater kindness. As for Harshness, it lost its autonomous modality altogether, becoming no more than an adjunctive function to Kindness.
So it was with Lilith and Chava (Eve). Lilith was a woman of absolutes, intolerant of anything but perfection in her man and in his relationship to her. Not a great recipe for a marriage. Chava was ready to look the other way for the sake of the relationship, aware that things are never perfect, but love can make it work. She contained within her some of Adam and could feel his heart's rhythm within her own.
Woman was upgraded. The problem is, Adam wasn't.
The first sin of humanity can be traced to Adam's failure in response to Chava: According to the Ari (Rabbi Yitzchaak Luria, 1534–1572, supreme master of the Kabbalah), Adam was meant to wait until Friday night to have relations with Chava—which is the appropriate time for those relations. He failed in this regard, resulting in her loneliness, which allowed for that whole snake-virus invasion.
Woman was upgraded. The problem is, Adam wasn'tThis is how the Tzemach Tzedek (Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, 1789-1866) elucidates and illuminates this teaching of the Ari: When it comes to sanctity and getting things right, preparation is everything. In order to be involved in this relationship in a human, inner way, both parties need to prepare and wait for the appropriate timing. Shabbat night is the appropriate time for Chava. She is Shabbat. This is her time. Besides, she needs to first develop an emotional relationship with Adam. She needs to exist first as a person in his eyes, and only then can she truly bond with him.
So we see that Adam also retained remnants of the earlier Tohu protocol, namely its top-down hierarchy. Tohu was all about unidirectional data flow: Information descends from the Infinite Light to create and sustain a world—and that's where it stops. No dynamics for user feedback. Zero learning curve. Basically, the end client ("user") is treated like just another accessory to the hardware/software and I/O.
That's the way, after all, that the world was originally created. G‑d spoke and it was. There was no interest in user feedback; you couldn't ask the created beings, "What do you think if we do it like this?"—because there were no created beings, no users, since that's what was being invented. So creation, initially at least, was entirely a top-down protocol.
All this was reflected in Adam's attitude toward Chava. He treated the relationship in a top-down fashion, as though she was no more than an accessory to him. Bad deal for Chava, not too good for Adam, either. Adam also needs time. His role is to be more than a seed-delivery mechanism. He needs to be the Provider and Protector of his family. When he charges impetuously into a physical relationship driven by his own hormonal urges, he effectively reverses roles: Chava now holds the goods and he's down on his knees begging for them. Or grabbing them and causing even more harm.
Adam was stuck in the old protocol. He should have learned from G‑d's own modality-shift with him: Having created the world, G‑d turned to Adam to initiate a two-way, interactive relationship. Adam awoke to a latent world, where life lay just below the surface of the soil, "for there was no Adam to work the soil." In this case, Adam was bright enough to figure out what was demanded of him. He prayed for rain, "and a mist rose to water the garden."
Adam was stuck in the old protocol. He should have learned from G‑d's own modality-shift with himFrom that point on, the protocol had changed. If the initial act of Creation was a free lunch, the soup kitchen was now closed. From now on, nothing in the entire cosmos could receive without giving, or give without receiving. Not even Adam or Chava.
Ever since, this has been the greatest challenge of every man who has felt for a woman: the challenge to be a man and rein in his own one-way urge. The challenge to recognize that, hey, there's someone else here besides me, this is a person, an "other," a "not-me"—and maybe she's not in the same space as me quite yet. The challenge to wait and to share.
If he fails, he becomes a slave and in the long run, despised and used by the woman he believes he has conquered. If he succeeds, he unites with her and is respected by her. The children that are born from that union are granted peace between their own bodies and souls. In miniature, he has repaired the entire cosmos—and that itself is reflected systemically throughout all of Creation. Everything starts at home, even world peace.1
