Shalom Brothers: Before There Was Manhood (Bereishit)

Before there were expectations about what a man should be, there was Adam. Not the Adam of Hebrew-school pictures or later theology. Not the patriarch, provider, alpha male, or “real man.” Before any of those categories existed, Genesis gives us ha-adam: the human being. Pay attention, brothers, because that may be one of the most useful things the Torah has to say about men.

The first human is placed in a body, given breath, surrounded by abundance, assigned some work, given a boundary, and told — eventually — that being alone is not good. When you think about it, those seem like the basics for a pretty good life.

God does not tell Adam that his worth depends on how strong he is or how much he accomplishes. He is not even initially called ish, “man.” He is adam, the earth-creature fashioned from adamah, the ground.

Before manhood becomes an identity, masculinity a performance, or gender a social argument, the Torah begins with something simpler: a human being living in a male body. So what matters to him? He has something worthwhile to do. He has enough to eat. He has freedom, but not unlimited freedom. And, as God soon recognizes, he needs another person with whom to share his life. In other words, he needs roughly what we all still need.

There is something else in the story that is easy to miss. Adam is given a role in making sense of the world around him. God brings the animals before him and Adam names them. Whatever else that strange scene means, Adam is not simply dropped into creation as a consumer of it. He is asked to pay attention. To notice difference. To use language. To participate in understanding the world he has inherited.

God places the human in Eden “to work it and to protect it.” That first assignment is worth noticing. Adam is not told to conquer the garden. The garden already exists. He did not create it and does not own it. He receives something good and becomes responsible for caring for it.

That may tell us something important about what God wants from him. Not greatness or domination. But stewardship and participation. Responsibility for something beyond himself. And what does Adam seem to want from God? The text never gives us a speech about it. But God provides what Adam cannot provide entirely for himself: life, a place in the world, purpose, companionship, and some sense that he is not here accidentally. There is an intimacy to the early chapters of Genesis that disappears quickly. God speaks directly to humans. The human lives inside a world in which God feels close enough to address.

Then Adam learns another lesson: “It is not good for humans to be alone.” Loneliness is the first thing in creation God calls not good. There is nothing embarrassing about Adam needing another person. The need for relationships is built into the story of being human. The first man is not presented as most complete when he can handle everything himself. Quite the opposite. God looks at a solitary human being and decides that something essential is missing.

Adam also meets a boundary. You may eat from the garden, God says, except from this one tree. That may be one of the earliest lessons in adulthood. Having desire does not mean being entitled to satisfy it. Living among other people requires learning that some things are ours to take and others are not.

Only after that boundary is crossed does the human story become more complicated. Adam hides. When God confronts him, he blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent. Shame enters the picture, and soon power does too.

But notice the first question God asks the hiding Adam: Ayeka? Where are you? God obviously knows where Adam is. The question is asking for something else. Come out. Locate yourself. Tell the truth about where you are and what you have done. That may be the first real test of adulthood in the Torah, and Adam does not do particularly well on it.

We often talk about dominance, control, and hierarchy as though they are ancient features of manhood. Genesis places them on the other side of human failure. They are not part of the original assignment. Which makes the earlier Adam worth returning to.

Before anyone tells him what a man is supposed to be, he has a body to live in, work worth doing, a world to care for, limits to respect, and another human being he cannot flourish without. He is expected to pay attention to his world and answer when God asks where he is.

That is a surprisingly modest job description that is surprisingly difficult. Maybe our conversations about men sometimes begin too late. We begin with masculinity, with all the arguments about what men have become, what men have lost, and what men need to reclaim. Genesis goes further back. Before asking whether a man is masculine enough, successful enough, or strong enough, it asks whether he is living well as a human being.

Does he care for what has been entrusted to him? Can he live with limits? Can he admit that he needs other people? And when life asks, Where are you?, can he answer without hiding or blaming someone else? Those questions existed before all the bullshit about being a man started. They may still be the ones that matter most.