- The Snake II
Moshe Ben-Chaim
- Reader: Recently a question was asked on a discussion group I
am a member of, I have no idea what the answer would be, could you
enlighten us, please? Here it is: "Can you tell us what the snake
(discussed in Genesis in connection with Adam and Eve) being cursed,
and being forced to move on its belly, and eat dirt all its days are
suppose to mean?"
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- Mesora: The snake itself was a
real creature, as stated once by a Rabbi. The Rabbi taught that if we
are to take the snake metaphorically - as some commentators do - then
what prevents us from taking Adam and Eve literally? Perhaps they too
are metaphors, and we see clearly, this would destroy the entire
Torah. Such an interpretation gives license that anything in the Torah
could be understood as a metaphor; including Moses, Abraham, and even
God and His actions. Based on the very fundamentals of Torah, we do
not accept this path. But the same Rabbi taught that the understanding
of a literal snake, does not obviate deeper ideas disclosed in the
Scriptural account connected with it.
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- I will offer my own suggestion. As the snake was the precipitant of
sin, it may also allude to the workings of his emotions - i.e., that
which caused sin. Perhaps as a rectification of the emotional makeup
of the snake, God addressed two factors: 1)"Going on its
belly" may imply the slow down of the emotions, as crawling is a
much slower process than walking. (We learn from Rashi that the
snake's legs were amputated.) Emotions have no other function than to
seek gratification. They are not the apparatus which perceives right
and wrong, and they cannot function outside of their design, therefore
they continually seek satisfaction with no cessation. Such a path
leads to destruction, so a slower 'movement' of the emotions allows
other positive forces to kick-in, and hopefully steer the creature
back on the right path. 2) Additionally, even if the emotions with
their slower state are in fact successful at achieving wrongful
desires, "eating dirt all the days of its life" may teach
that one other change was made to the snake: It was also given less
satisfaction when desires were obtained, so "eating dirt"
may allude to the 'sour taste', or the lessened satisfaction realized
by the being - even when it achieves the very same, poor goals as
before. Again, this minimizing of satisfaction hopefully steers the
being away from only seeking emotional goals.
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