Genesis - Parashath Bereshith - Second aliyah.

SECOND ALIYAH: ADAM AND EVE.[2:4 - 2:19] [2:5] because there was no human to work the ground There was no irrigation, which required human labor. "There was no one to recognize the benefit of the rain." (Rashi) [2:7] He blew into his nostrils. "He made him both of earthly and heavenly matter – his body from earthly matter, and his soul from heavenly matter." (Rashi) "The soul of man is part of G-d Himself, as it were." (Steinsaltz, p. 16, note.) [2:9] and the tree of knowledge, good and evil: Robert Alter correctly translates this as “the tree of knowledge, good and evil” (and not “… knowledge of good and evil”). The definite article here is attached to [ הַדַּ֖עַת|ha-da’at], "knowledge", and by the rules of Hebrew grammar it cannot be “knowledge of” something else. “Good and evil” therefore describes the ambiguous and ambivalent nature of the tree and its fruit – both good and evil. Also, notice that the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of life are mentioned after, and apparently excluded from, the description of "every tree pleasing to the sight and good for food". So the appeal of the Tree of Knowledge perhaps lay elsewhere than in its outward appearance. "Evil involves distortion, and yet this distortion is not too far removed from the essence of human creativity, a capacity that stems from the ability to perceive reality beyond its obvious form." (Steinsaltz, p.16, note.) The appeal of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge lay not in its beauty but in its mysteriousness. It is human nature to be attracted to the unknown and the unexplored, even if (or perhaps because) this attraction carries with it an element of danger. [2:16 - 17] Of every tree you may surely eat, but of the Tree of Knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat, lest you die. It is possible that eating of the Tree of Knowledge would have revealed the nature and location of the Tree of Life. [2:18] It is not good for man to be alone: Notice that the solution is not to create a second Adam from scratch; rather, the single, unitary man must give up his completeness – just as (so to speak) the Creator must self-limit and withdraw to make room for man and free will. [2:19] Every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens ... to see what the man would call them: The fish are excluded from this verse, and in fact Biblical Hebrew lacked names for any individual species of fish. "... the redaction gives us first a harmonious cosmic overview of creation and then a plunge into the technological nitty-gritty and moral ambiguities of human origins." (Robert Alter, p. 13 note.) Together with the separation of the original human into two beings, male and female, we also see the emergence of language. We depend on other people to keep ourselves sane; we learn how to think, speak, and act by interacting with the people around us. And the division of the original, unitary human into two individuals signals a shift in consciousness: the ability to observe another person from the outside, and to imagine ourselves as other people see us. [531]