Naked And Not Ashamed: Parashat Bereshiyt Reflections

Hebrew Vision News

by Miykael Qorbanyahu aka The End Time Scribe

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For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, yet they were not ashamed.

Genesis 2.24-25

In the original condition, Maimonides elaborates, the human being would have no faculty engaged in consideration of the generally accepted things, that is, Aristotelian endoxa. Hence, in that primordial state, there was no access to judgments of the noble and base, or beautiful and ugly. It is of decisive importance, as we shall see, that the terms Maimonides employs here are not those the objector used when he identified intellect with the capacity to distinguish good and evil, or more simply, good and bad. That judgments of noble or base have no place in our original state can be seen, Maimonides observes, from the most obvious case—uncovering the private parts. In the words of Genesis 2: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (2:25). The first consequence of the opening of their eyes is the experience of shame: that experience, as Maimonides interprets it, marks the loss of pure intellection of truth and falsehood and its replacement by the lens of noble and base, based on generally accepted opinions. The “fall” of man consists precisely in this transformation of our cognitive capacities.

Maimonides on Knowledge of Good and Evil: Guide for the Perplexed

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In Hebrew the word for nakedness, so as found in the context of this week’s sidrah from Genesis chapter two, is arowm (עָרוֹם). Indicative of being bare or stripped down, the word also connotes the idea of being subtle, crafty, prudent, aware and shrewd, which is suggested from its root word aram (עָרַם). Taken a step further the word arowm can be said to mean that the eye (ayin/ע) is the beginning (rosh/ר) of the soul’s connection (vav/ו) to the flow of the Divine Wisdom of Torah (mem/ם). It is in this light that we find Adam and Chawwah fully illuminated in the primordial state of Mashiyach consciousness being that Adam was anointed by יהוה prior to his eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. While in this expression of consciousness, there was a state of innocence that emanated from within Adam and Chawwah, as they were entirely unaware of the delineation of good from evil, as their only consciousness of judgment was in regards to what was true and what was false; what was real and what was illusory. Therein was the distinguishing characteristic of their sense of judgment. For them, there was no sin yet in existence because, as it is written, sin is not reckoned when there is no Torah. It was at this point in their lives that they were most intimately connected to יהוה, their Father and King, and their purpose and mission in life was absolutely clear.

During this time for our great ancestors it is well perceived that they were completely covered in the cosmic light of life. It was also during this space of their existence that their consciousness was at its highest levels of emanation and perception. As we’ve discussed in previous writings, and according to Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides aka the Rambam), it is the highest cognitive capacity of humanity to embrace divine perception and divine iintellect which allows us to, in deed, reflect the image and likeness in which we were created after יהוה. This is how Adam and Chawwah were able to shine in the way which they did. Theirnreality of their nakedness was in their willingness to being fully exposed, spirit, soul, body, before יהוה which was derived from their intimate connection with their Creator. Their not being ashamed was the result of the wholeness of their true celestial nature resultant from their harmonious alignment with יהוה which then caused them to experience all of the true pleasures of life which arose from their selfless service to יהוה in the Garden.

It was when they chose to disconnect themselves from the presence of יהוה, however, that they immediately realized that they were naked and took steps to attempt to hide themselves from the presence of their Creator in the midst of their new found state of shame. Their choice, in essence, resulted from their rejection of being chosen servants of the Most High, as they rather chose to serve themselves and their personal interests; something that we all, at various points of time in our life, can relate to doing. Shame, the painful emotion caused by guilt, shortcoming or impropriety, shortcircuited their cognitive capacity of intelligence and reason, which then arrested their spiritual development and formally introduced them to the spectre of death. Because of the illusory existence that they accepted as reality after being deceived the serpent, the Torah records these words in description of what is said to have taken place as a result of their culpable action,

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made loin coverings for themselves. And they heard the sound of יהוה Elohim walking about in the garden in the cool of the day, and Aḏam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of יהוה Elohim among the trees of the garden.

Genesis 3.7-8

Notice in the passage that it was through the portal of their eyes that they were both connected and disconnected to and from יהוה. The significance of perception in terms of Adam and Chawwah being placed in the garden was about their ability to see the reality that had been provided for them through the Creation of יהוה versus the manipulation of reality exacted in vengence against יהוה by the serpent. Being that we are all aware of the matter of the eyes being the windows to the soul, the eyes provide a direct link to the brain which is the command center for the body. Therefore, depending on what the eyes perceive, the brain’s influence on the body and soul of the individual who is perceiving sights is determined by the quality and caliber of one’s vision. The role of the brain in the process of perception is in distinguishing and delineating what’s real from what’s illusory for the one perceiving. This process is described in an article from Discover Magazine which has this to say about the matter:

Vision, of course, is more than recording what meets the eye: it’s the ability to understand, almost instantaneously, what we see. And that happens in the brain. The brain, explains neurobiologist Semir Zeki of the University of London, has to actively construct or invent our visual world. Confronted with an overwhelming barrage of visual information, it must sort out relevant features and make snap judgments about what they mean. It has to guess at the true nature of reality by interpreting a series of clues written in visual shorthand; these clues help distinguish near from far, objects from background, motion in the outside world from motion created by the turn of the head. Assumptions are built into the clues–for example, that near things loom larger, or that lighting comes from above.

The brain must process an immense amount of information as fast as it can, using any shortcuts it can, says [Stuart] Anstis. It has to find a minimum hypothesis to cover a maximum amount of data. So it’s got to use any trick it can. His experiment reveals one of those tricks: We think the brain is programmed to use brightness the way it is in the world. That means shadows are always darker, and light comes from above.

A negative world, with light pouring down from the sky like black paint, shatters those basic assumptions. And when we violate the assumptions, confusion reigns. Reverse brightness, as Anstis did, and critical clues about the world, such as facial features and expressions, and shape and depth, are subverted. The result is illusion.

This is what took place with Adam and Chawwah after they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Torah, the information that Adam had come to perceive and receive from יהוה, was intended to serve as the basis of reality that he was to engage and master. All decisions were to be filtered through the perception of reality so as programmed by Torah which would then have allowed for Adam to remain in a state of constant connection with the consciousness of יהוה. It was when they failed to perceive the reality that had been created by the Creator, that they became encased in illusion, and henceforth, their souls and bodies, too, became encrusted in a more dense vibration which in Hebrew are called the qeliphot (קליפות).

Understood as shells, or the shadows of the Tree of Life, the qeliphot function as the encasings of the flesh over the spirit and soul of humanity. Like husks that cover corn, when the qeliphot covered Adam and Chawwah, they were hidden from their inner selves to which they once only knew. It was then that they realized that they were not only naked, but now they were ashamed because they had chosen to separate from the presence of the Most High. Their guilt led them to take on the accusatory spirit of the adversary as they went to cast blame on individuals or matters external to them as if they were forced to carry out their ill advised actions. Once they had fully become aware of the illusory existence that they had come to perceive, they chose to sew fig leaves for themselves, futilely covering up the nudity of their degraded bodies that had consequently come about as a result of their disobedience. While they attempted to hide themselves from the presence of the One omniscient, they were in fact hiding from their own reflections which they had created from the expression of their misguided freewill.

After assessing the circumstance that Adam and Chawwah had created, it was then that יהוה took matters into Its own hands and provided the couple with a covering that would provide them with appropriate skins which would allow for the means for them to return back to their original state of consciousness that they were imbued with prior to eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Often we find ourselves in similar circumstances, attempting to hide ourselves from the presence of our Power because we have found ourselves naked and ashamed due to operating outside of the will of our Sovereign. It is then when we find ourselves in the dangerous position of being uncovered and unprotected, as we have moved outside of the covenant and will of יהוה. We are assured, however, that there is redemption available to those who turn back from the shadowy ways of death and enter the light where the promise of life is found. This Adam and his wife did for forty years, according to the book of the Life of Adam and Eve, daily repenting of their sins in the rivers Jordan and Tigris.  Therein they found forgiveness and life. The law of sin and death, however, is reserved for those who refuse to cease living according to the illusion in the world of shadows.

Let us seek to become whole, therefore, and live our life in accordance with Torah consciousness, fully aligned and united with the will of our heavenly Father and King. For it is in this Spirit that we are able to escape the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and pride of life to which our foreparents succumbed to in Gan Eden. The choice is solely ours to make, in that we have been given the opportunity to receive abundant life by being observant of the Torah, in Spirit and Truth, in contradistinction to the experience of death, which is the result of living life according to one’s own dictates and perceptions. Being that the goal of humanity is to reflect the image and likeness of its Creator, reproduce both spiritually and physically, and to reign over creation in the position of the Sovereign of creation, it would behoove us to seek to re-establish our connection with יהוה through the faithful observance of Torah in the Spirit of Mashiyach. Ultimately, to be victorious in our life, we must learn to exercise our divine intellect and discern our environs with divine perception. For with these two capacities fully aligned with the will of the Most High, all illusion is dissipated and we are able to see ourselves and our surroundings in their true light. It is then that we will be able to stand in the presence of יהוה fully naked and unashamed, resurrected from the death that we had taken in from our choice to separate ourselves from consciousness of Torah, as it is written,

“The first man Aḏam became a living being,” the last Aḏam a life-giving Spirit. The spiritual, however, was not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second Man is the Master from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the likeness of the earthy, we shall also bear the likeness of the heavenly. And this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood is unable to inherit the reign of Elohim, neither does corruption inherit incorruption.

1 Corinthians 15.45-50

Selah…