The Perfect Enemy

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper ^[a]suitable for him.”  Genesis 2:18 NASB

Helper suitable – My work never gets too far from this original story of human desire.  Over and over I return to these seminal verses, trying my best to tease out the vast implications for fundamental relationships.  Guardian Angel was a good start, but only a start.  When I first thought of writing the book, my chosen title was The Perfect Enemy.  Fortunately, I listened to my wife, and Guardian Angel became the published title.  But the idea of a perfect enemy still lurks in the background—and probably deserves a sequel.  Let me explain.

Something is wrong with the “perfect” creation, “It is not good for man to be alone.”  That’s our impression, typically from years of mistranslated Christian theology.  The creation God made wasn’t perfect.  It was good!  There’s a difference.  The difference is wrapped up in philosophical constructs we’ve inherited from the Greeks.  The Hebraic idea isn’t about a “perfect” world that falls into corruption.  It’s about a good world that succumbs to the exercise of choice. But following up on this progression would take a long time (and maybe a book).  So, instead, let’s look at just one of the interesting implications.

What’s not good about the creation (as God sees it)?  Zornberg unravels the question.  “Here, one may wonder, is it that, emotionally, loneliness is not good for man?  Or is it rather, as Rashi has it, that it is metaphysically not good that man live in a fantasy world of splendid isolation, imagining himself to be a god?”[1]  I’m inclined to follow Rashi.  Adam isn’t just alone.  The Hebrew makes it clear that he is apart, existentially isolated.  As he will soon discover in his naming of the animals, there is no other creature quite like him.  His uniqueness is his burden.

“Adam is different from us; lacking parents, he lacks the emotional history that is entailed in being born into a family.  His history of desire, with its compromising effects, begins as a function of fulfilling God’s desire: God seduces him, God lures him to acknowledge his longing for a helpmate, God overwhelms him with sleep to collaborate with desire.”[2]

“God provokes Adam’s desire before He acts on His own desire to create Eve, who then becomes the agent of destruction.”[3]  In other words, God creates Adam’s perfect enemy, that is, precisely the thing (person) who will challenge Adam’s propensity to think of himself a sole ruler of this Paradise, who will demand compromise from him, and in the process teach him what it means to be in communion with another like himself.  Biblically, God creates the perfect enemy so that Adam can discover what it means to create a friend.  Humanity depends on connectedness.  Adam is distinct from the animals, but he needs relationship in order to be human.  God provides this possibility.  It’s up to Adam to make the opportunity real.  Perhaps looking at the story in this way helps us realize that the foundation of all human relationships begins with the conversion of the other into a desired friend.

Topical Index: perfect enemy, Guardian Angel, alone, friend, Genesis 2:18

[1] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious, p. 9.

[2] Ibid., p. 10.

[3] Ibid., p. 9.