“And for your husband shall your Desire be….”

The story of Creation as recounted in Bresheet continues to fascinate me. It is not only the details of the evolvement of our universe that intrigues me. That is but one facet of it.

What continues to enthrall me, though, is what happened to Man and Woman following the consumption of the Fruit of the Tree of “Knowledge.” I am particularly referring to the change in perceptions, comprehension, insights and what lesson G-d had wanted us, humans, to draw out of that experience.

In my essay of two weeks ago, I dwelt on the benefits of eating the forbidden fruit. I also mentioned that the main gain from that rebellious act of Adam and Eve was a moral one as they learned to distinguish between Good and Evil. The story in Genesis also tells us that as soon as they ate the fruit, Man and Woman were made aware of their bareness and rushed to cover themselves as they felt ashamed and that it was morally bad and inappropriate.

In many cultures, being naked or even semi naked is associated with lust, sex and sensuality. It has thus become a taboo in many societies. Some, however, as, for example the tribes I visited in Namibia where women walk bare breasted publicly, see nothing bad or evil in such practices. We, in most parts of the world, regard it as inappropriate and that is what is being taught to us from an early age.

So, why do so many of us believe that nudity is morally “Evil?” After all, had Man and Woman not walked shamelessly unclothed for a while before they discovered their nakedness? “Adam and his wife were both naked’ and they felt no shame.” Genesis 2:25.

And that is where the terms “Desire” and “Lust” enter the discussion.

Unfortunately, “lust” (ta’avah) and desire (tshukah) appear, both in the Hebrew and the English languages, as synonyms for each other. Though these two terms have some common denominator, I beg to differ. Lust (ta’av ah), in my view, is mostly associated with the physical, carnal and sexual realm. It is an urgent need that once satisfied, lies dormant until some stimuli, some catalyst awakens it again.

Desire (tshukah), however, is a fabric that is made up of various threads. It encompasses longing, love, ambition, an urge, an attraction for someone or something. Of course, it also includes the erotic, the sensual but not just that, as the term Lust resonates.

Herein, in my view, lies the lesson that G-d had wished Adam and Eve, especially Eve, to take on. It was she who first saw that “the fruit of the tree was good and lust (ta’avah) to the eyes.” (Genesis 3:6). It was lust, as the verse teaches us, that caused their downfall and eventual eviction from the Garden of Eden. G-d had known that lust would be the Achilles’s heel of mankind. He had also been aware that once Man and Woman discovered each other’s nakedness, lust will take over.

It is precisely this kind of a reality that G-d was trying to avoid. Knowing the effect Eve had on Adam, He informed her, “Your desire will be for your husband.” (Genesis 3:16). Since it was Eve who lured Adam into eating the forbidden fruit, G-d ordered her to desire her husband, to love him, support him, be there for him and lust him but NOT JUST lust him. He employs the word Tshukah to imply the unending union between Man and Woman, a union that is based on the Spiritual, Emotional and Intellectual spheres, not merely the carnal.

And that is the lesson of this episode, I believe. It is the differences rather than the similarities between Desire and Lust which morally set Good and Evil apart.