Bereshit: Chava, Uncovering Women’s True Essence

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Bereishit is all about beginnings, foundations, conception. The first day on earth, the first person, the first relationship – it all starts here. Certainly in this parsha too we can find the blueprint of who we are. Chava’s soul is the root of ours, her feminine energy is the source of ours and her nature is the prototype of what every woman truly is. We often wonder, who am I? Rebbetzin Ora Goldberg¹ encourages us: open the pages of a Tanach, read about the women who lived before us and find within exactly who we are.

We often call Chava the eim kol chai, mother of all life, because that is who she is, the first mother of the human population and therefore the universal mother of humanity. Every person will eventually draw their lineage back to Chava. Creating life and vitality, though, isn’t limited specifically to motherhood in Torah. We find that a person’s mitzvot are considered his offspring (as it was for Noach whose righteousness is listed as his ‘generations’²) as well as a person’s students (Even in their childless state, the pasuk says Avraham and Sara created souls in Charan – people they inspired to convert)³. Every woman possesses this quintessential piece of the female paradigm, Chava. A woman whose name derives from the Hebrew word chiyut, vitality. Physically, a woman carries and bears her children through pregnancy and childbirth, creating life yet she is also given, in the words of Rebbetzin Crispe “the creative ability to grant life.”⁴

We see this in the Malbim on Eishet Chayil⁵, where the garments the Eishet Chayil dons are in fact her own spiritual achievements. “She seeks wool and flax and her hands work willingly.” The avodat hamiddot undertaken by the Eishet Chayil, symbolised by her willing hands produces beautiful garments which clothe her soul. Through our own Torah and mitzvot, women can convert people and things from a state of potential and mold them into actuality.

Another derivation of the word Chava can be found later in Tanach⁶. In Tehillim 19:3, we find the word ‘yechave’ in the verse ‘night reveals knowledge to night’ suggesting Chava means sharing or manifesting knowledge. In Iyov 36:2 we see ‘ve’achavecha’ in the verse ‘wait for me a little while and I will show you,’ further emphasizing the linguistic link between Chava and women expressing and sharing. In Modern Hebrew, we have the Hebrew word ‘chavaya’ ‘experience.’ Rebbeztin Crispe writes poetically that women are expressers of experience and experiencers of expression. As explained above, part of our role as a miniature eim kol chai is to bring form both physically to our children as well as spiritually, emotionally and creatively. Rebbetzin Kohn⁷ defines ‘yechave’ as meaning ‘articulate’ and empowers us that “[Chava’s] heightened capacity for expression is ours for the taking.” Certainly, Chava’s loaded power of speech can be seen in the downfall of Adam, together with her own. The Gemara⁸ tells us that ten measures of speech descended to the world and women took nine measures of speech. We are designated as speaking beings, effortlessly conjuring up realities with our tongues. Chava, as the first woman, held the G-dly keys to either create worlds of ideal perfection or worlds of cursed destruction with her female speech. Every Jewish woman since is endowed with a microcosm of these abilities, mini builders of worlds, an entirely different spin on the eim kol chai.

We may be familiar with the symbolic connection between women and the moon; both possess the humble nature of deflection, cycle monthly and represent faith through the nights. Rebbetzin Tamar Taback⁹ describes how the moon is the icon of the feminine archetype – the subordinate luminary. Initially both luminaries were formed with equal greatness but the moon was diminished on the fourth day of creation when she complained that “two kings can’t share a single crown.” Since then, the female force of moonlight has never been the primary force of the world. However, the Navi¹⁰ reveals that in the future, the moon’s light will be as brilliant as the light of the sun and the sun and moon will indeed share a crown. Rav Dessler wrote that feminine gifts such as binah, deep emotional intuition, need to be harnessed in order to achieve the healed world that we crave¹¹. In the words of Rebbetzin Goldberg, in the days of Moshiach, femininity (and not masculinity) will be the dominant force of the world. The more we tap into our femininity, our inner Chava, the more we are preparing for this ultimate experience.

We began this article with the premise that exploring Bereishit, and the women therein will help us uncover who we are. As women, we may adopt many roles; in our family, in our community and in our line of work. Rebbetzin Goldberg points out how often, especially in the realm of family, we risk losing our identity in our quest to nourish, nurture and build others. We overidentify perhaps with being a wife or mother – and in our pure desire to perform those roles perfectly, – we lose elements of ourselves.

Maybe our sense of humor takes a backseat, our artistic interests are sidelined or our favourite shiurim, neglected. The truth is, Chava, and every woman since is a multifaceted and multitalented soul and we need to ensure we incorporate our personal loves and passions, our quirks and interests, our strengths and our dreams into this crucial role of building a family, in order to fully utilise our feminine kochot. In the words of Rebbetzin Goldberg “the more me, me is, the better wife and mother I am.” The women of Tanach were not one-dimensional and we should not be either. Whether we are the type to bake perfect sourdough rolls for Shabbat or hold an impromptu dance party in our playroom in Adar, we must bring our full selves to become that eim kol chai. Then we will truly feel the chiyut and the chavaya so entrenched in our feminine essence.