"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 God said, "It is not good that man is alone, I will make him a helpmate opposite him. And the Lord God formed from the earth every beast of the field and every fowl of the heavens, and He brought [it] to ADAM to see what he would call it, and whatever The ADAM called each living thing, that was its name. And ADAM named all the cattle and the fowl of the heavens and all the beasts of the field, but the ADAM, he did not find a helpmate opposite him.
Ayekah? Cried, the ADAMAH. Why are you alone ADAM? Do you not see us, know us, your own image and reflection? It is in all of our image you were created? We planted you as a seed, why do you seek a helpmate in just a shard of creation?
The man and woman could not hear the ADAMAH, as they were no longer ADAM, but shards of a whole, fire gone astray, of Ish/Man and Ishah/Woman. They also took from the Tree of Knowledge, though forbidden. No blessing, no permission, no relationship, just taking, stealing.
As God cursed these shards of fire. ADAMAH cried a second time, Eichah, woe to us! ADAM, in your inability to see your own reflection, in your slumber and breaking into shards, and in your stealing from the Tree, you have brought curses on yourself. As you have taken seed without permission and thus caused pain, you will now feel this pain in each time you bring your own seed into the world. For all seed is sacred. As you have lorded over the Tree and stolen from the ADAMAH, your plating and gathering of seed, will continue to be hard and painful.
"With the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ADAMAH" (Gen. 2:19). Until you repair your relationship with us, your sowing and repeating will continue to come through hardship, exile, lordship, and pain. "Turn to us, and we will return to each other, and renew our days as in the very begging" (see when we were one, ADAM and ADAMAH, when you were whole, Ish and Ishah in harmony.
ADAMAH continues to cry out with each and every breath of day: Ayekah? Where are you human, grow up and take your rightful place? Eichah! Woe is all life, until the day you return. Oh, ADAM, when will you look at yourself in the mirror, when will you remember your own soul, and see that you are ADAM(AH), a part of us, and return to us?
(This Midrash is a work in progress and I would love help with citations and ideas for how to fill it in more! What I am attempting to do here is an echo of Heschel's "God in Search of Man," a wondering of why ADAM felt so alone, and why their kinship with ADAMAH is not discussed more in the text. The words Ayekah/ "Where are you" and their echo in Lamentations Eichah/Woe (same hebrew letters, just different vowels) are also incorporated, as attempts to foreshadow God's question, and all the desolations of Tisha b'Av, including our potential full desolation as we continue to plunder and lord over the rest of life on Earth, without ability the ability to wake up and grow up. )
