פרשת בראשית תשכ"ה - האדם

לנפש חיה A LIVING SOUL — Also cattle and beasts are called נפש חיה (1:20, 22, 24), but the נפש of man is the most highly developed of all of them, because to him was granted understanding and speech.

And the Lord God created man, dirt from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils a living soul, and it was for a speaking spirit in man.

מקדם EASTWARD — In the east of Eden He planted the garden. Should you say, however, it is already written, (1:27) “and He created the man etc.”, then I say that I have seen the Baraitha of R. Eliezer the son of R. José the Galilean, dealing with the thirty two rules of interpretation according to which the Torah (Agada) can be interpreted, and the following is one of them: when a general statement of an action is followed by a detailed account of it, the latter is a particularisation of the former: — “And He created the man” is a general statement, but it does not explicitly state whence he was created and what God did unto him. Now it repeats it and explains these things: “And the Lord God formed man”, “and He made to grow for him the garden of Eden”, and He caused a deep sleep to fall upon him.” He who hears this might think that it is a different account entirely, whereas it is nothing else but the details of the former general statement. Similarly with reference to the cattle the creation of which has been mentioned above (1:27). it resumes and writes, (2:19) “and out of the ground the Lord [God] formed every beast of the field etc.”, for the purpose of explaining “and He brought them unto the man to give them names”, and also to state that the fowls were created from the swamps.

'לא טוב היות וגו IT IS NOT GOOD etc. — I shall make an help meet for him in order that people may not say that there are two Deities, the Holy One, blessed be He, the only One among the celestial Beings without a mate, and this one (Adam), the only one among the terrestrial beings, without a mate (Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer 12).

Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Rabbi Yosei says: An individual is not permitted to afflict himself by fasting, lest he become too weak to work and be beholden to other beings, and those beings will not have mercy on him. Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: What is the reason of Rabbi Yosei? It is as it is written: “And man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Rabbi Yosei interprets this verse as a command: The soul I placed within you, preserve and sustain it.

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

ויקח AND HE TOOK — He took him with kind words and induced him to enter (Genesis Rabbah 16:3).

ויקח ה' אלוקים, even though we have been told already in verse 8 that G’d placed Adam in Gan Eden, the Torah repeats this by stating that “G’d took man etc.,” because at this point the Torah wanted to inform us of the commandment which accompanied Adam’s taking up residence in that idyllic place. Our verse also spells out something that had not been mentioned previously, i.e. that Adam was not to treat Gan Eden as a retreat, but that he was made responsible for maintaining it in good order. לעבדה ולשמרה, to work it and to preserve it intact. The verse makes plain that G’d removed Adam from a nearby location where he had been created, depositing him in Gan Eden The question is why G’d had not created Adam in Gan Eden in the first place, seeing He was going to transfer him there anyway? The reason is that He wanted him to appreciate the quality of that garden. Had he been created there, he would not have had any means of comparing it to another region on earth, and would not have cherished its excellence. By transferring him to Gan Eden, G’d demonstrated to Adam that He had his best interests at heart. The word ויקח may be understood as similar to G’d saying about Avraham ואקח את אביכם את אברהם מעבר הנהר, “I took your father Avraham from beyond the river Euphrates.” (Joshua 24,3)
לעבדה ולשמרה, although the noun גן is masculine, the Torah treats it here as if it were in the feminine mode. The reason is that the work would be performed on the soil, אדמה of the garden, and the word אדמה is a feminine noun. Alternatively, the word “garden” appears in the Bible both in a masculine mode, גן and in a feminine mode גנה, when the letter ה is added at the end. An example of this is found in Isaiah 61,11 וכגנה זרעויה תצמיח, “and its seeds will sprout like those in a garden.” The word לעבדה refers to constructive labour, furthering the growth and fruit-bearing capability of the trees, whereas the word ולשמרה refers to the taking of preventive measures to counter invasion of the garden by predators, and other measures to prevent its deterioration. Our sages, reading into this expression also a moral/ethical teaching, understand the word לעבדה as the dedication to study of G’d’s commandments, whereas the expression לשמרה refers to the carrying out of these commandments in practice. (Sifri Eykev 21)

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof.

לראות מה יקרא לו, so that he would see which name would be appropriate for each creature, based on the specific tasks they performed in the universe.