Paradise does not collapse with a scream, it collapses with a question. A single sentence slips into the garden like smoke, and the world is never the same. The serpent does not begin with a bite, it begins with doubt, turning generosity into restriction, trust into suspicion, and divine command into something negotiable. The woman answers with clarity, then adds a protective phrase that was never recorded in the original warning, and the serpent seizes that addition like a splinter of wood, pries it open, and calls the whole house unstable. Desire rises in three waves, appetite, beauty, and the hunger to be more than human, and then the act arrives with terrifying simplicity, she takes, she eats, she gives, and the man eats with her. Their eyes open, not to glory, but to shame, and the first human hands begin stitching coverings that cannot heal what has been torn. In this episode we walk through Genesis 3:1 to 7 with reverence and precision, drawing from the sages, Midrash, Talmud, and the great commentators across the centuries, to trace the anatomy of temptation, the shape of sin, and the first trembling footsteps of exile inside a garden that was made for life. Sources and Further Study Genesis 3:1 to 7 with classic Jewish commentaries, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.3.1-7?with=all Rashi on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.3 Rashi on Genesis 3:1, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.3.1 Rashi on Genesis 3:3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.3.3 Ramban on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Ramban_on_Genesis.3 Ibn Ezra on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Ibn_Ezra_on_Genesis.3 Rashbam on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashbam_on_Genesis.3 Sforno on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Sforno_on_Genesis.3 Abarbanel on Torah, Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Abarbanel_on_Torah%2C_Genesis.3 Malbim on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Malbim_on_Genesis.3 Kli Yakar on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Kli_Yakar_on_Genesis.3 Or HaChaim on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Or_HaChaim_on_Genesis.3 Targum Onkelos on Genesis 3, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Targum_Onkelos_on_Genesis.3 Bereishit Rabbah 19, Midrash Rabbah on the serpent and the fall, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Bereishit_Rabbah.19 Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 13, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_DeRabbi_Eliezer.13 Talmud Berakhot 40a, traditions about the identity of the fruit, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Berakhot.40a Talmud Shabbat 146a, traditions about the serpent’s impact, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.146a Pirkei Avot 1:1, the principle of making protective fences, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.1.1 Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Part 1, Chapter 2, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed%2C_Part_1.2 Genesis 2:15, the charge to work and guard, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.2.15 Genesis 2:17, the original warning, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.2.17 Genesis 2:25, uncovered and unashamed, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.2.25 Deuteronomy 4:2, the warning against adding to the command, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.4.2 Chabad, Genesis chapter 3 with Rashi. https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8167/jewish/Chapter-3.htm
