In this article I will continue the analysis of the contradictions between the two accounts of the Creation of Man in the Torah and attempt to answer the questions:
- What is the meaning of the Naming of the Animals?
- Why the Naming of Animals was necessary?
In the Torah we read (Genesis 2:16-20): “And the Lord G-d commanded man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat.”
“But of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for on the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.”
“And the Lord G-d said, “It is not good that man is alone; I shall make him a helpmate opposite him.”
“And the Lord G-d formed from the earth every beast of the field and every fowl of the heavens, and He brought [it] to man to see what he would call it, and whatever the man called each living thing, that was its name.”
“And man named all the cattle and the fowl of the heavens and all the beasts of the field, but for man, he did not find a helpmate opposite him.”
Here we have a straightforward contradiction with the account of the Creation of animals given in the description of the six days of the Creation. In the aforementioned account the animals were formed after the Creation of Man. In the description of the six days of the Creation animals were made on the fifth day, before the Creation of Man. In the Torah we read (Genesis 1:24): “And G-d said, “let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind, cattle and creeping things and the beasts of the earth according to their kind,” and it was so”. It is also very important to pay attention to the passage of the aforementioned account (Genesis 2:19): “…and He brought [it] to man to see what he would call it…”. The “seeing of G-d” is the highest possible reaction. It is associated with the Sefira Chochma (Wisdom).
That poses the question: “Why “to see”?”. It would be logical for G-d “to hear”.
In his seminal work “The Guide of Perplexed”, Maimonides explains that the notion of “seeing” in the Torah means deep understanding and internalising the concept. The “seeing of G-d” is final in terms of actualisation of the information concepts and decision-making.
In the Torah when G-d is talking to Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah we read (Genesis 18:20-21): “And the Lord said, “Since the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has become great, and since their sin has become very grave,”
“I will descend now and see, whether according to her cry, which has come to Me, they have done; [I will wreak] destruction [upon them]; and if not, I will know.”
From this we can infer that by naming the animals, Adam began the execution of his main task of the actualisation of the information concepts of the Creation.
This idea is reflected in the Principle of the PARTICIPATORY CREATION, which I put forward in the previous articles. The meaning of the Principle is – “Man doesn’t exist without Creation, Creation doesn’t exist without Man”.
The Principle of the Participatory Creation has its roots in the Kabbalah, where it is expressed through the notions of “female waters and male waters” and it is based on the idea of John Archibald Wheeler about the Participatory Universe. In his book “At home in the Universe”, Wheeler writes: “An old legend describes a dialogue between Abraham and G-d. G-d chides Abraham, “You would not even exist if it were not for me!” “Yes, Lord, that I know,” Abraham replies, “but also You would not be known if it were not for me.”
In our time the participants in the dialogue have changed. They are the universe and man. The universe, in the words of some who would aspire to speak for it, says, “I am a giant machine. I supply the space and time for your existence. There was no before before I came into being, and there will be no after after I cease to exist. You are an unimportant bit of matter located in an unimportant galaxy.”
How shall we reply? Shall we say “Yes, oh universe, without you I would not have been able to come into being. Yet you, great system, are made of phenomena; and every phenomenon rests on an act of observation. You could never even exist without elementary acts of registration such as mine”?”.
The same idea is reflected in the works of the seventh Lubavich Rebbe. He writes (Likutei Sichos vol. 35 p.1ff): “According to the second approach above, that man’s naming of the animals was the first act of Divine service, it follows that the naming must have accomplished the purpose of all Divine service – to make the world more subservient to G-d. This was achieved through the naming which connected the spiritual source of each creature with its existence on the physical plane.”.
Based on the mentioned above, we can definitely say that the “Naming of Animals” was the process of the actualisation of the information concepts (of animals) in the information space of Creation. Everything seems to be clear, but the question remains: “Why were these concepts (of animals) necessary?”.
It’s self-evident that no commandment makes sense unless man has a tool to break it.
Did Adam have the tool to break the commandment of G-d? Before we answer this question, let’s consider in brief the notion of “soul”.
According to the Kabbalah of Information, the soul is the information structure made of concepts with a projection on the information dimension of “self”. The structure of the soul is similar to the Tree of Sefirot which makes it possible for the soul and the Tree of Sefirot to interact with each other. The bigger the projection of the soul on the dimension of “self” , the bigger, according to the Law of Likeness, the distance between the soul and the Tree of Sefirot .
The soul is a dynamic entity, it can “move” in the information space and acquire new concepts, that is a process we call “thinking”.
In Judaism there are two commonly accepted categorizations of the soul. I would call them conditionally - “horizontal” and “vertical”.
According to the vertical categorisation, there are five parts of the soul – Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya and Yehida. The structure of the soul is fractal, which means that for example Nefesh contains Ruach , Neshama, etc. Within the frame of this article, we will not consider this categorisation in details.
“Horizontal categorisation” is best laid out in the works of the Rabbi Shneur Zalman from Lyadi (Alter Rebbe), the founder of Chabad. (Tania, Torah Or and others).
Alter Rebbe mentions three souls – G-dly, Animal and Sensible soul.
The G-dly soul is the set of principles and information concepts within the frame of the commandments of the Torah, it doesn’t contain the concept of “breaking the commandment”.
It is situated in the zone of information space of Creation determined by the concepts of the commandments of the Torah.
The position of the Animal soul in the information space is not limited by the commandments of the Torah. It can stay in the information zone of the commandments or in any other zone of the information space including the Side of Evil (Sitra Achera). The Animal soul contains the concept of “breaking the commandment” of the Torah.
Alter Rebbe didn’t explain in details the nature of the Sensible soul, he hinted that the sensible soul is kind of neutral and could sway between the Animal soul and the G-dly soul.
From the mentioned above it follows that in order to break the commandment of G-d Adam and Eve must have had the Animal soul. That is exactly the second purpose of the process of the Naming the Animals. The majority of the commentators of the Torah shared the view that the Hebrew names which Adam gave to the animals precisely corresponded to their nature.
But the process of Naming the Animals worked in both directions – having given precise names to the animals, Adam incorporated the information concepts corresponding to the animals in his soul, hence acquiring the Animal soul.
Eve was built from the flesh of Adam and received at least part of the soul of Adam together with the Animal soul.
But there is more to that.
In the Torah we read (Genesis 2:20): “And man named all the cattle and the fowl of the heavens and all the beasts of the field…”,
(Genesis 3:1) “Now the serpent was cunning, more than all the beasts of the field that the Lord G-d had made…”.
From that follows that Adam named the Serpent among other animals, hence he and Eve had the concept of the Serpent in their Animal souls.
Who or what is the Serpent?
I will expand on that in my next article.
To purchase Eduard Shyfrin’s book ‘From Infinity to Man: The Fundamental Ideas of Kabbalah Within the Framework of Information Theory and Quantum Physics’ please click here. To purchase Eduard Shyfrin’s book ‘Travels with Sushi in the Land of the Mind’ please click here.