Patriarch/Biblical

Adam HaRishon

אדם הראשון

The first man, formed by Hashem's own hands, whose sin brought death into the world and whose teshuvah taught every generation that a person can return.

YahrzeitNot recorded

Lifetimec. 3760 – c. 2831 BCE (traditional chronology; 1–930 from Creation; age 930)

KeverChevron (Hebron)Me'aras HaMachpeilah (Cave of the Patriarchs), Eretz Yisroel

Biography

Formed by Hashem's Hands

Adam HaRishon zy"a, the first man and the father of all mankind, was created on the sixth day of Creation, the last of all Hashem's works. Hashem formed him from the dust of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and he became a living soul. Chazal teach that the dust of his body was gathered from every part of the earth, and that the day of his creation was Rosh Hashanah, which is why we call that day "the beginning of Your works."

The Midrash relates that before he was formed, the ministering angels split into camps. Kindness said, let him be created, for he will do kindness; Truth said, do not create him, for he will be full of falsehood. Righteousness spoke for him, and Peace against him, since he would be full of strife. Hashem cast Truth down to the earth, and while the angels were still arguing, He formed man and told them that their debate was over: man had already been made.

Hashem created only one man, Chazal explain, so that no family could boast of a greater ancestor, the righteous could not say goodness runs in their blood, and the wicked could not say they were born to be wicked. And it shows the greatness of the King of kings: a person who stamps coins with one seal makes them all alike, but Hashem stamped every human being with the seal of Adam, and no two are the same.

He was created on Erev Shabbos so that he could walk straight into the mitzvah of Shabbos, and so that a proud person can be reminded that even the gnat came before him. Chazal teach that when the angels saw him, they wanted to call out "Kadosh" before him, until Hashem cast a deep sleep upon him and all saw that he was only a man.

In Gan Eden

Hashem planted a garden in Eden, toward the east, and placed Adam there to work it and to guard it. He gave him one command: he could eat from every tree in the garden, but not from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day he ate from it he would surely die.

Then Hashem brought every animal and bird before Adam to see what he would call them, and whatever he called each creature became its name. The Midrash says that Hashem first asked the angels to name them, and they could not. Adam looked at each one and said: this is an ox, this a donkey, this a horse, this a camel. Asked his own name, he answered that he should be called Adam, because he was taken from the adamah, the ground. And when he was asked what Hashem should be called, he answered, Ado-noi, for You are Master over all Your creatures. Hashem later says through the navi, "I am Hashem, that is My name": the name that Adam gave Me.

Seeing every creature with its mate, Adam found no partner for himself. Hashem cast a deep sleep upon him, took one of his sides, and built it into a woman. When she was brought to him, Adam said, "This time, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." The Gemara teaches that Hashem Himself acted as shoshbin (groomsman), attending to the needs of the first chasunah. Adam named her Chavah, because she would be the mother of all life.

The Sin and the Teshuvah

The Gemara counts the hours of that first Friday. In the fourth hour a soul was placed in him, in the sixth he named the creatures, and in the seventh Chavah was given to him. In the ninth he received the command, in the tenth he sinned, in the eleventh he was judged, and in the twelfth he was sent out of the garden. He did not spend even one night in his place of honor.

The serpent persuaded Chavah to eat from the tree, and she gave to her husband, and he ate. Their eyes were opened; they sewed fig leaves together and hid among the trees. Hashem called to him, "Ayeka, where are you?" The Midrash reads the word as eichah, a cry of mourning: yesterday you followed My will, and today the serpent's. It is the same lament that would one day be cried over Yerushalayim.

Adam's sentence was that the ground would be cursed for him, and that by the sweat of his brow he would eat bread until he returned to the dust from which he was taken. Hashem made garments of skin for Adam and Chavah and clothed them, then sent them out of Gan Eden and set the keruvim at its gate to guard the way to the Tree of Life. The Chassidic masters teach that from that moment, good and evil have been mixed together inside every human being.

Yet Adam's story does not end with his fall. The Midrash relates that he settled near Har HaMoriah, kept the first Shabbos in this lower world, and found comfort in it. As that Shabbos ended and darkness came, Hashem sent him a pillar of fire. He stretched out his hands to its light and blessed the Creator of the lights of fire, and then the One who separates the holy from the ordinary: the first Havdalah. On Sunday he went down into the waters of the Gichon up to his neck and fasted for seven weeks, asking Hashem to take away his sin and accept his teshuvah, so that every generation after him would know that teshuvah is real. Hashem accepted it.

The Gemara records that Rebbi Meir called Adam a great chassid. When Adam saw that death had come into the world because of him, he fasted for a hundred and thirty years and wore belts of fig leaves on his body. Chazal teach that Kayin and Hevel were born on the very day of his creation. Kayin killed his brother, and when Adam was a hundred and thirty years old, Shes was born to him, "in his likeness, after his image." He lived eight hundred more years and had other sons and daughters.

His Enduring Legacy

Adam HaRishon passed away at the age of nine hundred and thirty, in the year 930 from Creation (about 2831 BCE), seventy years short of a thousand, for he had given seventy of his years to Dovid HaMelech. No date of his passing is recorded. Chazal teach that Chanoch buried him, in a resting place Adam had prepared deep inside the double cave of Machpeilah in Chevron, hidden so that no one would ever make his body an idol. Chevron is called Kiryas Arba, the city of four, for the four couples who rest there: Adam and Chavah, Avraham and Sarah, Yitzchak and Rivkah, Yaakov and Leah. The Gemara tells that when Rebbi Bena'a came to the inner cave, a heavenly voice stopped him from gazing at the one made in Hashem's image, but even the glimpse he had of Adam's heels shone like two suns.

Every Jew still carries Adam's story within him. The Noam Elimelech teaches that since his sin, a person must climb in avodah step by step, beginning with humility, and that every meal eaten in holiness, with the sparks of good drawn out of it, repairs a little of what Adam damaged. The Lehavas David points out that Adam and his son Kayin did teshuvah long before Reuven, yet Reuven opened a new path, returning again and again as if for the first time. Every Motzaei Shabbos, when a Jew stretches his hands toward the Havdalah flame, and every Friday night, when he sings Mizmor Shir L'Yom HaShabbos, the song Adam first sang, he is walking in the footsteps of the first man who fell and rose again.

Stories

The First Sunset

On the night after his sin, Adam thought the darkening world was his punishment, until the dawn taught him that night is part of Hashem's order.

Chazal relate that on the day Adam was created, he watched the sun go down for the first time. He had never seen night. Only hours earlier he had eaten from the tree, and now the light was draining from the sky. "Woe is me," he cried. "Because I sinned, the world is going dark around me. It will return to emptiness and chaos, and this is the death that Heaven has decreed on me."

All that night Adam sat fasting and weeping, and across from him Chavah wept too. Then the eastern sky began to brighten, and the sun rose again. Adam understood. The day sets and the night comes, and that is simply the way Hashem runs His world. In gratitude he brought an offering, an ox whose horns had come into being before its hooves, which Shmuel taught had a single horn in its forehead.

The Gemara tells a second, similar story. As the first autumn wore on, Adam saw the days growing shorter and shorter, and he was afraid that the world was fading because of him. He spent eight days in fasting and tefillah. When the winter solstice passed and he saw the days begin to lengthen, he realized that this too was the natural order. He made eight days of celebration, and the following year he kept all sixteen days as days of rejoicing, all for the sake of Heaven.

Source: Gemara, Avodah Zarah 8a (Talmud Bavli); English: The William Davidson Talmud (Koren–Steinsaltz translation), Avodah Zarah 8a.

Practical lessonWait for the morning

When something goes dark in your life, it is natural to read it as a final verdict, the way Adam read the first sunset. Before you decide what a hard night means, give it until the morning. Tonight, if you are carrying a worry, say one sentence to Hashem before you sleep: I do not yet see the dawn, but I trust that You run this world. Then, when the light comes, take a moment to thank Him for one thing that turned out better than you feared.

Such Is the Power of Teshuvah

When Adam learned from his son Kayin that teshuvah could soften even a harsh decree, he broke into the song of the Shabbos day.

After Kayin killed his brother Hevel, Hashem sentenced him to wander the earth. The Midrash relates that when Kayin went out from before Hashem, his father Adam met him on the road and was surprised to see him at peace. "What happened with your judgment?" Adam asked.

"I did teshuvah," Kayin answered, "and my sentence was eased."

Adam was stunned. He struck his own face and cried out, "So great is the power of teshuvah, and I did not know it." At that moment he stood and began to sing, "Mizmor shir l'yom haShabbos, a psalm, a song for the Shabbos day. It is good to give thanks to Hashem." The word lehodos means both to give thanks and to admit. Adam was singing about the joy of returning to Hashem.

Rebbi Levi teaches that Adam was the first to say this mizmor, but his generation forgot it. Generations later Moshe Rabbeinu came and restored it, and so it is counted among his psalms. The first letters of its opening words, he points out, can be rearranged to spell l'Moshe, to Moshe.

Each Friday night, when Jews around the world sing Mizmor Shir L'Yom HaShabbos at Kabbalas Shabbos, they are repeating the song of a father who discovered, through his own son, that no fall is the end of the story.

Source: Midrash Bereishis Rabbah 22:13; English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah (2022).

Practical lessonSing one line as a returning

This Friday night, when you reach Mizmor Shir L'Yom HaShabbos, slow down for the words "tov l'hodos laShem," it is good to give thanks to Hashem. Let them also mean, as Adam meant them, it is good to admit and come back. Think of one thing from this week you would like to do differently, and quietly hand it to Hashem as you sing. You may find, as Adam did, that coming back feels less like a burden and more like a song.

Seventy Years for Dovid

Shown the soul of Dovid HaMelech with almost no life allotted to it, Adam gave him seventy years of his own.

The Midrash relates that Hashem passed every future generation before Adam, as the verse says, "This is the book of the generations of Adam." One by one he saw the souls that would descend from him. Then he came to Dovid, and saw that only three hours of life had been written for him.

Adam was pained. "Master of the world," he said, "is there no remedy for this one?" Hashem answered that this was how it had arisen in His thought. Adam asked how many years had been given to him, and Hashem told him: a thousand years. "May one give a gift in Heaven?" Adam asked. Hashem said that one may.

So Adam declared that seventy of his own years would belong to Dovid. He drew up a deed of gift and wrote it out, and the Midrash says it was signed by Hashem, by the angel Metatron and by Adam himself. Then Adam spoke again: "Master of the world, the beauty, the kingship and the songs of praise, all of it I give to him with these seventy years, so that he will live and sing before You."

Chazal note that Adam had been told he would die "on the day" he ate from the tree, and a day of Hashem is a thousand years. Because of his gift, Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, seventy short of a thousand. Dovid became king at thirty and reigned for forty years, and he filled the seventy years Adam gave him with the songs of Tehillim that Jews have sung ever since.

Source: Yalkut Shimoni, Bereishis, remez 41 (on Bereishis 5:1); Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah 14:12.

Practical lessonGive from what is yours

Adam's gift cost him something real: seventy years of his own life. Most of our giving comes from what we have to spare. This week, choose one gift that truly costs you: an hour you had planned for yourself, spent with someone lonely; a call to a person who needs your patience more than your money. Do it quietly, without being asked, and let it help someone else sing in a way they could not on their own.

Teachings

Repairing Adam's Sin at the Table

After the sin Hashem said, "And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever." The Noam Elimelech reads this verse as a door opened, not closed. Hashem in His mercy wants teshuvah, that a person mend what he has damaged. "And now": now that Adam has sinned, how will he repair it? The word pen, usually "lest," can mean "perhaps": perhaps there is a remedy, that he take hold of the Tree of Life through eating, by eating in holiness and freeing the holy sparks hidden in his food. That is why Hashem sent him out to work the earth. In the World to Come there is no eating or drinking; only here, in this world, can a person bring about this repair.

Noam Elimelech, Bereishis, Chayei Sarah (on Bereishis 3:22–23)

Practical lessonMake one meal a mitzvah

Choose one meal today and eat it on purpose. Before you begin, say the bracha slowly, picturing the One who made this food grow for you. Eat sitting down, without a screen, and stop once before you finish to notice that you are satisfied. Then say the after-bracha with the same care. You do not need to fast or to change your diet. You are simply taking the very act through which Adam fell, and turning it into a small step back toward the Tree of Life.

Climbing Step by Step

Why did Hashem first tell Adam to eat from every tree, including the Tree of Life, and then forbid it after the sin? The Noam Elimelech explains that Adam began on a lofty level in the upper worlds, called the Tree of Life, and was meant to stay there in holiness forever. The Tree of Knowledge represented the lower worlds; eating from it made him physical, and good and evil entered him. Once he had fallen, it was no longer fitting for him to grasp the Tree of Life all at once. He had to rise from the lowest rung to the highest, step by step. Since Adam's sin, the Rebbe teaches, this is the way of every person's avodah, and the first step upward is humility: remembering, as Adam was told, "for dust you are."

Noam Elimelech, Bereishis, Lech Lecha (on Bereishis 2:16, 3:22–24 and 12:1)

Practical lessonTake the next step, not the last one

When you want to grow, it is tempting to aim for the top of the ladder at once, and then give up when you cannot hold on. Pick one small step instead: one more line of davening said with meaning, five minutes of learning before bed, one kind word you usually leave unsaid. Keep it for a week before adding anything. And when you feel proud of your progress, remember the dust Adam came from. Humility is not a step back; it is the first rung.

Names That Reach the Root

The Torah says that whatever Adam called each living creature, "that was its name." The Midrash relates that the angels could not name the animals, but Adam could, and he even named Hashem, Ado-noi, Master of all. The Noam Elimelech asks why the verse needs to tell us that the name he gave was its name. He answers that Adam was not inventing labels. He looked at each creature and saw its root in the upper world, and he directed his mind to call it by the very name that its root carries above. The Rebbe draws a lesson for tefillah: each word of praise belongs to a world of its own, and a person who learns to know those worlds can daven from the root, as Adam named from the root.

Noam Elimelech, Bereishis, Lech Lecha (on Bereishis 2:19); Bereishis Rabbah 17:4

Practical lessonSay one word from its root

In davening, words can easily become sounds. Choose one word you say every day, such as "Baruch" or "Ado-noi," and before you say it next, stop for a breath and think of what it means: blessed, Master of everything. Do the same, once today, with a person: instead of calling him by a label in your mind, look for the good at his root and name that to yourself. Adam saw what each creature truly was, and you can practise the same kind of seeing.

Family & talmidim

Children: Kayin, Hevel, Shes

Historical sources