The Blame Game (Bereishit 5787: Moral Matters)
Family Edition

After the seven days of Creation, the Torah tells us about Adam and Chava living in Gan Eden. God had told them not to eat from the Etz Hada’at (the Tree of Knowledge), but the serpent tricked Chava into eating the fruit, and she then gave some to Adam. When God asked Adam why he ate it, he didn’t take responsibility. Instead, he blamed Chava – and even God – by saying, ‘The woman You put here with me – she gave me the fruit’.

• Why do you think Adam chose to blame Chava rather than saying sorry to God?
• Why do you think God put the tree in the garden if He did not want them to eat from it?

האשה אשר נתתה עמדי

“The woman You put here with me”

(BEREISHIT 3:12)

Rabbi Sacks teaches us:

Adam blames the woman. The woman blames the serpent. The result is they are both punished and exiled from Eden. Bereshit is a set of variations on the theme of family, and none runs smoothly. With Adam and Chava comes conflict. With each successive generation, new tensions arise. This is the great power of the Book of Books (the Torah) and the reason it has never lost its hold on the human imagination: It is about us, people we can recognise and identify with. The real dramas are not the ones fought in court or on the battlefield. They are the ones fought and resolved in the home, between parents and children, between siblings, between husbands and wives.

Let’s discuss:

• Why do you think the Torah tells us stories about people who make mistakes?
• Can we learn more from mistakes than from perfect behaviour?
• Every generation in the Torah seems to face tension or disagreements, this is part of being human. But why do you think that people so often blame, argue and disagree?
• Adam blamed Chava, and Chava blamed the serpent. Does blaming someone else protect you from consequences? Why does honesty matter, even when it is difficult?