Chava is a Person

Consider Genesis 3:17, when God issues punishments for the incident of the Tree of Knowledge, Good and Bad:

בראשית ג:יז

"וּלְאָדָם אָמַר, כִּי-שָׁמַעְתָּ לְקוֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ..."

3:17 “And to Adam (the Man or Mankind) [God] said: Because you listened to the voice of your wife…”

Why is the first thing God mentions listening to Adam’s wife? Why is listening to his wife singled out, seemingly as a thing bad unto itself?

To answer this, we must go back to an earlier verse:

בראשית ב:כג

וַיֹּאמֶר, הָאָדָם, זֹאת הַפַּעַם עֶצֶם מֵעֲצָמַי, וּבָשָׂר מִבְּשָׂרִי; לְזֹאת יִקָּרֵא אִשָּׁה, כִּי מֵאִישׁ לֻקְחָה-זֹּאת.

2:23: Said Adam “This time it is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh; therefore [her name is ] to be called Woman [‘man’ (ish) + suffix denoting ‘to’/’towards’/’of’ (ah)], for from man was taken this”.

              This gives us an answer: Initially, Adam does not see his wife as person. Rather, he sees her as from or of his flesh and bones, rather than as an equal aside from himself, like his flesh and bones (and tellingly excluding the just-stated distinguishing characteristic of humanity entirely a mind, a soul, like his own) – he sees her as an extension of himself, with no separate personhood. Adam does not even think of her as a being – he even calls her ‘it’, not ‘her’ ( זאתbut not היא). This is the ultimate cause of the incident with the Tree.

              Since Adam sees his wife as like his own hand or foot – having neither a mind nor a will, he does not even think to truly converse with her. He gives her a command as if he was thinking to himself “Hand – do not touch that!”. When she offers him the fruit of the Tree, he questions her as much as one would question the actions of one’s own leg – not at all. Thus, tragedy occurs.

              This is why God says “the voice of your wife” – you listened to her voice but not to her. God leads off with this as it was the ultimate cause of everything else.

              Finally, after this, we see that Adam learns from his error and mends his ways:

בראשית ג:כ

וַיִּקְרָא הָאָדָם שֵׁם אִשְׁתּוֹ, חַוָּה:  כִּי הִוא הָיְתָה, אֵם כָּל-חָי

Called Adam the name of his wife ‘Chava’, for she was the mother of all living.

              In the end, Adam recognizes her as person (uses pronoun ‘her’ rather than ‘it’), with her own:

·        Mind: Adam does not speak about her as if she is not there, instead we have the standard formula used throughout Tanach when someone is given a name of “Called [namer] [pronoun] name [name], because [reasons]).

·        Soul: Additional word “was” added, when the sentence could have been written without it, which would imply present-tense “is”, with the verse as a whole parsing as “Called Adam the name of his wife ‘Chava, For she is the mother of all living’”, with the present-tense being inside a quote of Adam’s words. Therefore, the additional switch to past tense comes to teach us that in addition to her being ‘mother of all living’ – the only thing Adam had seen her as originally – Chava, and all of us also has the ability to grow into so much more.