Judaism and the Concept of Original Sin

There is a widespread popular misconception that Judaism and Christianity have radically divergent anthropologies, primarily because Jews supposedly do not believe in original sin. The Jewish view of human nature, according to the popular dichotomy, is that from the time of creation, there have been two innate tendencies in every person, one inclining the person to good and the other to evil (

and

, respectively). The life of each individual is a continual state of struggle between the two opposing inclinations, but the righteous person can overcome the evil inclination by an act of will. The Christian view, on the other hand, is alleged to be that the first humans were created in a state of perfection, which they themselves willfully corrupted. As a result, they compromised their former physical and moral perfection. The corruption that the progenitors of the human race originated is then passed on genetically to all of their descendants, and can be overcome only by divine grace.

Two texts will serve to illustrate the poles of this popular dichotomy. Perhaps the best-known literary expression of the Jewish view is a midrash in b. Ber. 61a, commenting on the unusual spelling of a Hebrew word in Gen 2:7: “Why is the word (

) in the text ‘Then the Lord God formed (

) man’ written with two yods? To show that God created two inclinations (

), one good and one evil.” The Torah serves as a bulwark against the evil inclination, as another passage in the Talmud states (b. Qidd. 30b): “The Holy One said to Israel, ‘My child, I created the evil inclination, and I created Torah as its antidote. If you busy yourselves with Torah, you will not be given over into its power.’”

In sharp contrast to this understanding of human nature is Augustine's famous statement of Christian anthropology in The City of God, obviously based on Rom 5:12, 17:

There are a few rabbinic texts that appear to polemicize against this Christian view of an original, all-contaminating sin. These texts are not concerned so much with the diagnosis of human sinfulness as with the cure. The best-known is undoubtedly a passage that is found three times in the Babylonian Talmud:²

In the continuation of the text, there is some discussion of how long the “pollution of the serpent” persisted in Israel. R. Abba b. Kahana declares that it lasted only until the time of Jacob, whose sons (in contrast to those of Abraham and Isaac) were born free of defect—considerably before the giving of the Law, one might note.³

The polemic intent of that text has long been recognized.⁴

It asserts the continuing efficacy of the Law as the antidote to human sin, against the Christian claim that the Law yields only “sin and death” (Rom 8:2), and that the agency of the Law has been superseded by the “spirit of life” (ibid.) embodied by “the one man, Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:17). In advancing the argument, however, the Talmudic text seems to adopt a Christian-sounding approach to the aetiology of sin, insofar as it speaks of a pollution transmitted by Eve to her descendants. This similarity should give pause to anyone who assumes a neat distinction between Judaism and Christianity on this topic. Of course, the text may be invoking the Christian view solely for the sake of argument, in order to claim that even if one accepts the Christian premise concerning the source of human evil, the Jews still have a superior solution to the problem. But I am inclined to the simpler view, propounded almost a century ago by Israel Lévi, that during the rabbinic period, contrary to the mainstream opinion, some Jews had a notion of original sin that included the idea that the first sin was transmitted from Adam and Eve to their descendants.⁵

Whether that view is correct or not, the fact remains that medieval Judaism developed its own versions of the doctrine of original sin, products of varying combinations of internal development and Christian influence.

⁶

(The converse of that statement is true as well: there are Christian anthropologies, such as that of the Pelagians, that are more closely related to their Jewish counterparts than to the Augustinian view. They are, however, beyond the scope of the present paper.)⁷

The Jewish forms of original sin are traceable to the aforementioned rabbinic references to the “pollution of the serpent” (

), as they were filtered through both kabbalistic and philosophical traditions of interpretation, emerging to prominence in later medieval Jewish thought, beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

⁸

Thus, in the thirteenth century, the Zohar (1.52b) elaborates the Talmudic text in a telling way, diametrically reversing its thrust by identifying another event as the occasion of a relapse into sinfulness:

This notion of the continuing sway of original sin exerted a profound effect on late medieval Jewish thought. For example, it pervades the writings of a younger contemporary of Ephraim of Luntshits, the influential Isaiah Horowitz (1560–1630), better known as the Shelah, after the acronym of his magnum opus, Shenei luchot ha-berit, “Two Tables of the Covenant.”⁹

Horowitz was born in Prague, and eventually served as rabbi there about a decade after Ephraim; the two men were well acquainted with and respectful of one another.

In Horowitz's view, Adam was created “completely good,” and only assumed his corruptible corporeal state “because of the snake.”

¹⁰

The basis for this view is a passage in the Zohar (2.229b) that states that as a result of their sin, the first humans exchanged their “garments of light (

)” for “garments of skin (

).” (That tradition is so central to Horowitz's thought that he refers to it more than a hundred times.) Not only were the first humans originally incorporeal, they also “did not have an evil inclination” prior to their sin. According to Horowitz, “they did not sin on account of the [evil] inclination as people sin now,” but simply because “they erred and believed the serpent.”

¹¹

Horowitz elaborates the terrible consequences of the first sin by an ingenious series of wordplays (in addition to the aforementioned play on

). The seductive power of the serpent removes the aleph from the words

and

, respectively, turning

, “Adam,” into

, “blood”; and

, “truth,” into

, “a dead person.”

¹²

Likewise the

, formerly the human being in the “image” of God, is reduced to

and

, “blood” and “death,” “blood on account of Adam, and death on account of Eve, who brought death into the world.”

After the expulsion from the garden, in Horowitz's words, Adam “sired offspring and the offspring produced offspring. It all derived from a putrid drop. For the drop became putrid as a result of the contamination of the snake.”

¹³

The ramifications of this view are obvious. All humans are born in a state of evil as a consequence of the first sin, and their natural proclivities are evil as well. Only by dint of supreme effort can evil impulses be controlled. And even then, they cannot be eliminated but merely held in check.¹⁴

The means of countering the evil inclination is constantly to increase stringency in observance (

):

This low opinion of unredeemed humanity cannot fail to evoke comparison with contemporary Christian views, especially since the sixteenth century saw a tremendous resurgence of Christian interest in original sin. As N. P. Williams puts it in his magisterial study of the topic:

The crisis eventually brought forth the “Decree concerning Original Sin” that was affirmed in 1546 by the Council of Trent and became the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. In the council's formulation, Adam was “constituted” in a state of holiness and righteousness, by his sin brought about the vitiation of his body and soul, and passed that injury on to his descendants.¹⁹

As for the Reformers, they, too, adopted an Augustinian view of original sin. The Westminster Confession of 1647, for example, asserts that on account of “this original corruption, … we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.”²⁰

Similar statements may be found in many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant prayer books. One published in 1644 prescribes that the minister should exhort his congregation I am not suggesting any direct contact between Horowitz and the Reformers, but a dour view of human nature, rooted in original sin (what Williams calls “a severe and gloomy anthropology”),²² seems to have spread throughout Northern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and cannot have failed to make an impression on Jewish thinkers.

Another passage from the Zohar (1.126b) not only indicates the persistent effects of the “pollution of the serpent,” but argues that they persist particularly in women:

Here, too, is an inversion of the Talmudic text. In this passage, however, the Zohar does not merely allude to the general Jewish relapse into sinfulness after the incident of the golden calf, but also asserts that women are particularly inclined to sin. In view of this attitude towards women, it makes sense that post-Zoharic discussions of biblical laws pertaining to women would be inclined to associate those laws with the pernicious aftereffects of “the pollution of the serpent,” especially since that association is foreshadowed in both biblical and earlier rabbinic literature.²³ The laws governing purification after childbirth, found in Leviticus 12, proved fertile ground for commentators seeking to elucidate the effects of original sin on women.

Ephraim of Luntshits on Leviticus 12

In his heyday, Ephraim of Luntshits (1550–1619) was one of the most distinguished rabbis in Europe; at the beginning of the seventeenth century, he was the head of both the rabbinical academy and the rabbinical court in Prague, and he was renowned for his preaching.

²⁴

Although six collections of his homiletical writings appeared in print during his lifetime, nowadays he is best known for his Torah commentary, Keli yeqar (“precious vessel,” an expression taken from Prov 20:15), first published in 1602, and often reprinted both separately and in some editions of the Rabbinic Bible (Miqra

ot gedolot).

²⁵

In deference to his work, Ephraim himself is often referred to as “the Keli Yeqar” (or, in vulgar pronunciation, “the Keli Yaqar”). I turn now to the three occasions—in the Keli Yeqar, and in two published sermons—on which Ephraim discusses Leviticus 12 in any detail.

The laws concerning purification after parturition pose a challenge to modern sensibilities. They state that when a woman gives birth to a male child, she is to remain in a state of ritual uncleanness for seven days. On the eighth day, the text continues, the male baby is circumcised. If, however, the baby is female, the mother's period of uncleanness is doubled to fourteen days, and of course in the Bible there is no initiation rite for females comparable to the circumcision of males. Even after this initial period, the mother remains in a state of “blood purity” for an additional time, again twice as long for a female baby (sixty-six days) as for a male (thirty-three days).

²⁶

At the end of the prescribed term, she presents an expiatory offering, and then, the biblical text states, “she shall be pure from her source of blood (

)” (Lev 12:7)—an unusual way of putting it.

Several explanations have been proffered for the way these laws differentiate between male and female births; they are conveniently summarized in Jacob Milgrom's commentary on Leviticus.²⁷

(He does not mention the Keli yeqar.) The explanations may be categorized as biological, juridical, or cultic, and interesting parallels may be discerned between the biblical laws and the practices of other ancient and modern societies. For example, the dubious biological explanations typically found in traditional sources include the suggestions that the postpartum recovery period is longer following the birth of female babies, and that it takes longer for girls to be formed in the womb. (The Keli Yeqar cites one of those explanations, in fact, although that is not the part of his discussion that will engage us here.) More recently, it has been suggested that the double period of purification for baby girls was motivated by the fact that some newborn females exhibit vaginal bleeding.²⁸ When all is said and done, though, Milgrom comments with good reason that “the reason for this disparity between the sexes is unknown.”²⁹

The Keli Yeqar does not evince such admirable caution. He lists some of the notable problems with the laws in Leviticus 12, and then he makes an extraordinary exegetical leap, tying Leviticus 12 to Genesis 3! He audaciously asserts that “in order to resolve all of these difficulties [in Leviticus] straightforwardly, I say that everything is naturally derived from the primordial sin [

, the Hebrew way of saying “original sin”], as the text says, ‘she shall be pure from her source of blood.’ The primordial sin of Eve,” he continues, “is the source [

, the same word that is found in the biblical text]—the source of this unclean blood requiring expiation and lustration.”

This exegetical leap is not unprecedented: it is reminiscent of a comment by the late-fifteenth/early-sixteenth century Spanish exegete Abraham Saba, whom Ephraim cites on several occasions.³⁰

Citing a well-known Talmudic text (b. Erub. 100b), Saba remarks that Leviticus 12 is placed amidst laws concerning purity and bodily affliction, “to inform us that all impurities and afflictions originated from the sin of Adam and his wife Eve.” The uncleanness of menstruation and bodily emissions, Saba continues, “is derived from the sin of Eve”—specifically from the divine edict, “In pain shall you bear children” (Gen 3:16).

Saba offers his own explanation of the doubled period of by introducing an ingenious interpretation of Gen 3:16, where God says to Eve, “I will make most severe your pangs in childbearing; in pain shall you bear children.” Saba observes both the doubling of

(“I will make most severe”), and the occurrence of the two cognate forms,

(“pangs”/“pain”). The doublings indicate several things to him: that a seven-day period of purification is required both for menstruation and for childbirth; that the time of purification must be augmented in the case of childbirth; and that the period of purification must be twice as long for a girl as for a boy. He ascertains the last point by noting that there is only a single occurrence of

in God's charge to Adam (Gen 3:17), and “therefore for a baby boy, He commanded only seven days.” By doubling the charge to the woman, saying both

and

, God was indicating that for a baby girl, the woman would be impure twice as long as for a boy. The notion that the doubling of

in Genesis 3 leads to the doubled period of impurity appears to be unique to Saba.

³¹

Although Saba anticipates Ephraim's approach in several respects, he does not actually use the term “primordial sin” in connection with Leviticus 12. The earliest occurrence of that term that I know of in a Jewish commentary on the text is in another of Ephraim's regular sources, namely Bachya ben Asher's commentary on Lev 12:7.

³²

Bachya (writing ca. 1300) wishes to explain why a mother has to make a sin offering at the completion her period of purification (v. 6). He writes: Were it not for Eve's sin, Bachya writes, the bearing of children would be “natural,” unhindered by desire and lust—the way a tree bears fruit without experiencing desire. As a result of the “primordial sin” (

), however, mother and daughter are conjoined in sin, “for the branches bear the defect that is in the root.” Ephraim echoes Bachya, commenting, apropos of the sin offering, “this expiation is for the primordial sin [

] of Eve.”

³³

While Bachya's and Saba's commentaries are, in general, important sources for Ephraim, in this case Ephraim offers greater detail than either of them, and takes a different exegetical tack. Bachya, following Gen. Rab. 17.13, cites specific commandments that are imposed on women as a result of Eve's sin; Ephraim, on the other hand, refers to two Talmudic passages that detail Eve's punishment. The first is the text from the Babylonian Talmud (b. Erub. 100b), cited also by Saba, that interprets Gen 3:16 to entail ten hardships that God imposes on women. These include bleeding in two forms—menstrual bleeding and the shedding of blood that comes with the loss of virginity—both of which are ingeniously derived from the biblical verse. The second text, from the Jerusalem Talmud (y. šabb. 20a), states that Eve's sin brought menstrual bleeding into the world.³⁴

“And therefore,” Ephraim states, “all women require purification because of the primordial sin, from which uncleanness and pollution spread into the world, inducing seven days of uncleanness for all newborns.”

By relating the impurity of Lev 12:7 to the primordial sin of Eve, Ephraim can explain why the mother of a newborn boy remains unclean for seven days. He concludes that it is appropriate that the basic period of purification be seven days because of the symbolism of the number seven. If the first humans had not sinned, they would have remained like angels, both incorporeal and not subject to the influence of the seven planets. When they sinned, they “fell” (so to speak) into a corporeal state, subject to the seven planets and also to the flux of the material world that was created in seven days. The “eighth,” in contrast, signifies spirituality, which is why the uncleanness of the seven days may be expiated on the eighth. Ephraim refers to his commentary on Lev 9:1, where he explains the “sanctity” of the number eight.³⁵

Now Ephraim can explain why baby boys have to wait seven days before being circumcised on the eighth, and indeed, why circumcision should be mentioned at all in conjunction with laws that pertain to parturition. To clarify matters, Ephraim adduces some traditional biology. Once again, his proximate source most likely is Bachya b. Asher, although in this case, Bachya was continuing a line of interpretation that may be traced back to the early-thirteenth-century kabbalist, Ezra of Gerona.³⁶

According to a strange notion in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Nid. 31a and elsewhere), a child's sex is determined by which parent “ejaculates”³⁷ first at the time of conception: if it is the mother, the baby will be male, and if it is the father, the baby will be female. Since the male baby is produced from female seed, the boy is tainted by the mother's uncleanness, and the seven days culminating with the ritual of circumcision on the eighth signify the removal of her uncleanness from him. In the author's words, “the [period of] purification of the mother is analogous to the [period of the] baby boy's purification from her.”

Conversely, Ephraim can also explain why girls are not circumcised. The baby girl is derived from male seed, which is not contaminated by the primordial sin, in Ephraim's view. In his words, “the serpent imposed pollution on Eve but not on Adam.” Since Adam's seed is free of the taint, neither a seven-day period of uncleanness nor any rite comparable to circumcision is required, in principle, for girls. In an aside, Ephraim remarks that this is a good answer to give to Christians who ask about the absence of any Jewish initiation rite for girls: they do not require the ritual purification entailed by an act such as circumcision.

But if the male seed is uncontaminated by the primordial sin, why is there a fourteen-day period of uncleanness for the mother after the birth of her daughter? Ephraim gives two answers to this question. First, “every female,” states the Keli yeqar, “is liable in her own right for seven days of uncleanness on account of the primordial sin. It is, therefore, appropriate that [the mother] be unclean for fourteen days, seven for herself and seven for her daughter, because [in giving birth to a girl,] she has added [the baby's] uncleanness to the world in addition to her own.” Here once again Ephraim echoes Saba, who writes, “this is what the sages meant when they said, ‘why two weeks for a female? Seven days for mother and seven for daughter. And as for a male, just seven days for mother.’” As far as I know, the source of Saba's citation has not yet been identified. A similar notion appears in the commentary of Moses Alshekh (d. after 1593), who writes: “The impurity of the daughter is doubled, because by means of the woman impurity enters the world, and by bearing a daughter, she increases impurity through her.”³⁸

Ephraim's second answer appears in an early sermon on Leviticus 12, published in 1580 in a volume entitled עIr gibborim (“City of Heroes,” based on Prov 21:22).³⁹

Once again following the lead of Bachya ben Asher, Ephraim adds a moral dimension to the biological basis for his observations. How is it that one parent “ejaculates” before the other? “Those who conquer their sexual appetite will not be so quick to produce seed.”⁴⁰ The man with many daughters, therefore, can be recognized as one who succumbs too easily, “who has not been able to conquer his desire.” Men should be able to overcome their impulses more easily than their wives, because, in Ephraim's words, “women are more easily seduced, as was the case with Eve, the mother of all the living, who was seduced first.” This matter of virtue provides yet another reason for the double period of impurity following the birth of a baby girl. Quoting Ephraim's sermon, “The man who sires a son overcomes his desire, drawing power away from the primordial snake who seduced Eve, and therefore the time of uncleanness is short. The one who sires a daughter still retains his desire, and therefore the period of uncleanness is augmented. That uncleanness signifies the pollution that the serpent imposed upon Eve.”

In this sermon, Ephraim also makes passing mention of Eve's name and its explanation:

(“Eve, mother of all the living,” Gen 3:20). It is hard to imagine anyone construing this name as pejorative, but in a remarkable comment in the Keli yeqar, Ephraim finds a way:

⁴¹

“Why should [Adam] name her now, after the sin, and furthermore, he should have named her ‘Chaya’ (

). It appears that prior to the sin, she was called ‘Chaya’ according to the explanation ‘mother of all the living’ (

), but after the sin had caused death for the generations her name was changed from ‘Chaya’ to ‘Chava’ (

). ‘Chava’ is derived from the [Aramaic] word chivya (

), which means ‘snake.’”

⁴²

Adam could have named her ‘Nachash’ (

), which is the regular Hebrew word for a snake (including the serpent in the garden), but the name “Chava” retains the impression of Eve's former high estate. Thus, for Ephraim, Eve's name encodes the fact of her contamination by the primordial sin.

Among Jewish sources, the closest parallel to Ephraim's interpretation of Leviticus 12 that I have found is in a youthful sermon by Ephraim's exact contemporary, Chaim Vital, from his early collection, עEts ha-daעat

ov.

⁴³

I do not know how Ephraim could have known Vital's work, which was not published until the nineteenth century, but the affinities seem too close to be coincidental. Perhaps both are dependent on a third source that I have not yet found.

Since I intend to treat Vital's sermon in detail in a separate paper, I will offer only a brief summary here. Like Ephraim, Vital bases his interpretation of Leviticus 12 on original sin. Once the evil inclination enters Adam and Eve by means of the pollution of the serpent, he writes, it “cleaves to the world through them, and in every act of sexual intercourse, a spark of that evil inclination is mixed in (

), transmitting it to the child that is born (

).”

Vital asks why the period of uncleanness for both menstruation and childbirth should be seven days. “In brief,” he writes, “it is well known that Adam and Eve were given seven commandments that are alluded to in the verse, ‘The Lord God commanded Adam, etc.’ (Gen 2:16–17),

⁴⁴

and by the sin of the tree of knowledge, he [sic] transgressed all of them, as is known to kabbalists (

).”

⁴⁵

The seven days of uncleanness, including the seven days during which the baby boy is in possession of his foreskin, correspond to the seven transgressions. This view is confirmed, according to Vital, by the esoteric interpretation of Prov 24:16: “Seven times [understood to mean seven days] the righteous man falls [that is, he is fallen] and [on the eighth, the day of his circumcision, he] gets up.”

While a male baby has to undergo circumcision after seven days in order to remove the uncleanness incurred as a result of Adam's sin, the mother requires additional purification (that is, the additional thirty-three days following the initial seven). After all, not only did Eve sin herself; she also induced her husband to sin.⁴⁶

In the case of the baby girl, Vital writes, There are other parallels (as well as significant differences) between Vital's sermon and Ephraim's commentary that I will take up elsewhere.

Ephraim returned to Leviticus 12 in another sermon, included in his penultimate collection of homilies, Śiftei daעat (the title is derived from the words immediately following k[ebreve]lî y[ebreve]qār in Prov 20:15), which was published eight years after the Keli yeqar, in 1610. The author describes the collection as a companion volume to the earlier work, comprising excerpts from sermons that he preached during the years 1607–1609. While this later sermon does not treat the question of primordial sin, it does offer some revealing insights into Ephraim's attitude towards women.⁴⁷

“There is a distinction between male and female,” he writes: “The male was formed from the soft dirt, so the male is soft and compassionate by nature, more so than the woman, who was created from hard bone.” He cites Ps 103:13, which states that God's love for the pious is like the love of a father (not a mother!) for his children. Further proof comes from Gen 18:6, where Abraham orders Sarah to prepare a meal for their three guests. Ephraim draws on a comment in b. Bava Me

iעa 87a (also the basis of his interpretation in the Keli yeqar on Gen 18:6), that this incident demonstrates that “women are stingier with their guests than men.” Women can alter their ungenerous natures, Ephraim claims, by praying and cultivating charitable habits. If they succeed in doing so, they—like Sarah—will be rewarded with the birth of a son. In Ephraim's words, “should she change her nature and demeanor so that she, too, is soft-hearted, then she will bear one who is like her, namely a male who is naturally soft like herself; but if she remains according to her nature, she also will give birth to one who is like her, a female.”

This homily reflects an argument that pervades Ephraim's sermons, namely his criticism of the wealthy members of his congregation for their failure to provide adequately for the poor. It is hard to say whether his singling out women as particularly ungenerous reflects actual social conditions, or is mere stereotyping.⁴⁸

Either way, the comment draws on Leviticus 12 without reference to any of Ephraim's previous commentary on the text, and with no mention of Genesis 3 or original sin.