One of the jobs that Adam HaRishon had in Gan Eden was to assign names to all of the living creatures that Hashem created (Bereishis 2:19-20). The names he gave them became the names we use to this day. Amongst all those creatures however, he didn’t find a helpmate, a partner to be by his side to nurture the world. So Hashem put Adam to sleep, removed one his ribs, and fashioned a woman. When Adam awoke and saw her he exclaimed, “This time it is my own flesh and blood. This one shall be called woman for she was taken from man” (Bereishis 2:23)!
The Torah continues with the story of snake and his cunning. He seduced the woman and tricked her into going against Hashem’s command. She not only ate from the forbidden fruit, but also convinced her husband to taste it. Their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked. When Hashem accused Adam of eating forbidden fruit, he implicated the woman who in turn implicated the snake.
Since they didn’t heed the only command Hashem had given them, they warranted punishments. The snake was made to crawl eternally on his belly, eating only the plentiful dust of the earth, effectively removing him from Hashem’s everyday providence. The woman was cursed with the pain of childbirth and subservience to the man.
Adam was cursed with a life of toil to earn his livelihood plus inevitable death. He was supposed to have remained immortal, forever living in the garden and tending it. Now he became mortal.
In light of the curses just meted out, the next verse comes as an utter surprise. Adam now gives a name to the woman, Chava, the mother of every living thing! After the day’s events one would think he would have called her Morticia or Meesa, names more appropriate for a person who caused death to descend into the world!
Yet we know that a person’s name is not just a means of identification, it is the name of his soul, his very essence (see the Ohr HaChayim in the beginning of Parshas Vayeilech). When Adam named his wife Chava, he was expressing something very profound, an acceptance of his new situation, his mortality. Mortals, furthermore, have a very important way of pushing off their mortality, giving birth to offspring. Chava, first denying, but now accepting her mortality, becomes the first mother of offspring and thus the mother of all human beings.
We can explain Adam’s choice of the name Chava in a different manner. Immortal life can itself become a curse. The drone of life eternal can elicit a lessened appreciation of life. With the onset of mortality and the underlying, haunting reality of death, one is compelled to look at life more seriously and to live it fully.
Rav Moshe Wolfson, Mashgiach in Yeshivas Torah V’Da’as, explains that at first glance, Adam’s choice of the name Chava seems like a cover-up for her real essence, the one who brought death to the world. Says Rav Wolfson, that was precisely Adam’s intention. He covered up for his wife’s mistake and gave her a name that we lovingly give to our daughters today. Did Adam do the right thing? Hashem himself affirms that! The very next verse says, “And Hashem made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and he clothed them” (Bereishis 3:21). Since Adam covered for his wife, Hashem, midoh k’neged middoh, (in the same fashion) covered them.
May we always, as the Rav R’ Elimelech of Lizhensk wrote in his famous prayer, “Place in our hearts the ability to see the desirable qualities in our friends and not their shortcoming.”
