Under the Covers
Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.” Genesis 4:1 NASB
Had relations – We all know that this is about sex, right? Adam and Eve have sex and she gets pregnant, right? No, sorry. Wrong! Of course it’s about sex. That’s why it’s not about sex.
Let’s look closer. First, the translation “had relations” is a euphemism, provided by the translator. The word is yādaʿ, “to know.” We realize that this expression is about intimate, sexual knowing, but perhaps we have already overlooked the more important idea. Adam and Havvah know each other. They share their vulnerability in a way that they have not experienced since the end of chapter 2 when they were naked and not ashamed. Here yādaʿ suggests more than sexual encounter. It suggests deep connection. And that’s the tragedy of this verse. What should have been a connection that established self-identity and communal equality has turned into something else. Now they are lonely together.
Not now,
Not ever.
Alone
Together.
Cain is not the result of joyous harmony. He is the result of fractured identity. If the man cannot know who he is until he tells at least one other person who he is, then Adam’s tragedy is that he no longer reveals who he is. He is broken, ashamed, guilty and estranged. And he remains so. He does not ask forgiveness (in spite of the fact that he is forgiven) and he does not forgive. He is a stranger inside his own skin. And now, when he shares himself, he only succeeds in creating further separation. Cain is not his son. Cain is her replacement. Adam knows, all right, but what he knows is
Not now,
Not ever.
Alone
Together.
Havvah doesn’t win either. Neither one recovers bāśār ʾeḥad. Sex is no substitute for singularity. Sex is the loneliest act of human expression one can experience. It is the attempt to recover myself alone. That’s why we all know that sex is not love—and never can be.
Topical Index: had relations, sex, yādaʿ, one flesh, bāśār ʾeḥad, Genesis 4:1
This helps me put together a few more pieces of the puzzle. I’ve been holding onto the pieces that Yeshua came as the second Adam and included in that is the role of man. Further this role reveals and defines man in a mature state as in Christ as a lamb; one who takes on the debt of others. Presently I see “in Christ” as men and women who have matured as lamb and bride. I have learned to look at this through the lens of love God and love others. That is, in loving God we are continually maturing in covenant relationship with God that allows us to properly love others. (relationship-responsibility-covenant) In childhood we join in friendship covenant onto family onto marriage etc etc all the way to cosmos?
The picture that is forming connects to this week’s parshah. Able presents a lamb and Cain offers up the fruits of his labor. What is coming alive is that Able was offering up an image of himself as God saw him; God’s definition of man. This is deeply moving for me as it helps me embrace our daily offering of our members and our bodies as a lamb as a living sacrifice as an expression and agreement with who we really are. It is part of the restoration needed in expressing who we really are. It helps me embrace allegiance in a deeper way.
Thank you so much!
Stephen, thank you, too. I think you helped me with a missing metaphor (sacrificial lamb) for our ‘new’, post-Tree status. That status of course, is our fracture, and the fracture of others.
It takes a willingness to restore by sacrifice now, before we can relate again. That slain innocent lamb is designed to show us how we voluntarily give up advantageous positions (like life and innocence) in order to help another. This goes beyond the relating that occurs between two equals. None of us are equal now. because fracture messes up the equality equation. Sacrifice is what it takes to restore that equality.
If Yeshua was willing to risk His relationship with heaven to restore ours, then we should be willing to do the same. Moses shows us how. Abraham with Isaac shows us what that cost looked like from heaven’s point of view. Yeshua shows us WHAT to do. When I “pick up my cross and follow Him” I lay down my interests (once I secure them) for the interests of others. The patterns of sacrifice.
I think of sacred sex as bringing that same idea of sacrifice into relationship. If we were already connected (true equality) , then sex would be different, but I think we will never know that know for sure, because we lost that capacity. Now, for sex to be an act of love, we must be willing to sacrifice at the physical level, too, to be able to restore it back to that. Sacred sex is momentarily laying down my physical life for another, at least symbolically. This is a far cry from ‘what’s in in for me?’.
I think Adam and Eve must have been going on their expectation that they were already connected at the physical level (even though they weren’t at that point) and so did not know HOW to sacrifice to each other. The sacrificial system of slaying innocent creatures to restore devotion was a way to show us what that looked like. Perhaps we still need to have a way to practice that! Well, sex may be the best way, now. If we think about it, ancient religions attempted to use sex to restore devotion. Do we need to look at that more?
Thank you for the subject, Skip!
Following Stephen and Laurita’s trains of thought, I am pondering if Abraham sacrificing Issac is an image of Abel bringing the lamb, is an image of… the circles, or spirals, of “time”.
And the euphemism “making love”, another hiding from vulnerability! How lonely, how lonesome, the physical “union” can be when we hide behind the euphemisms. More often than not, it’s just sex. It’s just physical.
I found myself aching down to my soul for the women and the children under the bridge as I finished reading this post, Skip. I recall a well-known female Christian author encouraging wives to do whatever it takes to make themselves positive about sex when their husbands want it and the wives don’t feel like it because we are not to deny/deprive one another, taking Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7 out of context and creating a type of sex-slave industry inside Christian marriage. I remember the feeling, and the numbness, when I followed this advice. It got to the point that I felt like a prostitute inside my marriage, denying my self as I yielded to my husband’s sex drive. “Sacred” pagan rituals hiding inside the Church system.
And YHVH’s intention for bāśār ʾeḥad never realized
Not now,
Not ever.
Alone
Together.
Yet, as Laurita hinted, I have known bāśār ʾeḥad. This marriage has seen that level of vulnerability, and intimacy. It takes sacrifice, forgiveness, and BRAVING (to use Brene Brown’s acronym from her new book “Braving the Wilderness”). May YHVH never give up on us, that we may know yādaʿ.
Thank you Leslee. Unfortunately the translation makes it sound like get married or be condemned. Instead of get married for the right purpose not the hormone imbalance…
Yes, Seeker… translations are so very harmful in so many places and ways. And 2000 years of men’s interference only muddies the waters, doesn’t it… so grateful for Skip and all the seekers who are here.
Leslee, I have been thinking about what you said all yesterday. It struck a chord with me. Devotion, as love, is NEVER one-sided. Love demands interface. False gods are false because they demand one way sacrifice/devotion. Husbands, emperors, ecclesiastical authorities and all who require others to perform (sacrifice) for love (connection) just set themselves up as false gods, then. Yeshua said for us to call no man master. One sided ANYTHING is not allowed under the Law of love. Even heaven has mutually sacrificed for its love. So, sadly, Seeker, that probably does include even sexual unions that are mutual one-way streets.
Condemnation? We condemn ourselves when we settle for less than full connection; or at least the mutual promise to work toward that. Women, I agree, Leslee, because of how they are created, do tend to suffer the most from these lop-sided non-encounters. The Law was created to protect the weaker side of inequality against the stronger. It may be that all aggressors are rivals of heaven, too, in that they force one-sided sacrifice? That would, unfortunately, include all of us who are seeking the mythical unholy grail called My Own Way, too. I better quit while I am behind!