Bereshit - Being Alone

Gender Equality at Creation - by Dr. Raanan Eichler

https://www.thetorah.com/article/gender-equality-at-creation

Helper = Subordinate?

It is the first word in the italicized phrase, עֵזֶר (ezer), that has given rise to the notion that the Woman is ancillary to the Man, meant only to “help” him in whatever tasks he does. The King James Version translates this word as “an help.” Most modern translations, including the New JPS Tanakh, render it as “a helper.”

In English semantics, these terms bring to mind one who is of lesser status than the one helped. People who work in a household as employees rather than partners are often called “the help.” In Modern Hebrew, too, a person in this position is called an עוזר, or, far more commonly, an עוזרת (the feminine form of the word), from the same root as עֵזֶר.

Helper as Savior

In fact, however, the word עֵזֶר, which occurs nineteen additional times in the Bible, never refers to a person of this sort. While its interpretation as “help” or “helper” is essentially correct, עֵזֶר always refers to an entity that is more powerful than the person being helped; thus, it means “helper” in the sense of “savior,” “deliverer,” or “rescuer.” It almost always refers to God (an association expressed also in the personal names אֱלִיעֶֽזֶר, יוֹעֶ֛זֶר, and – among non-Israelites – הֲדַדְעֶ֥זֶר), and almost always when God is saving the person from serious, even life-threatening, danger.

Turning from the beginning to the end of the Torah for our first example, we read in Moshe’s blessing to the Tribe of Judah (Deut 33:7):

שְׁמַ֤ע ה' ק֣וֹל יְהוּדָ֔ה
וְאֶל־עַמּ֖וֹ תְּבִיאֶ֑נּוּ
יָדָיו֙ רָ֣ב ל֔וֹ
וְעֵ֥זֶר מִצָּרָ֖יו תִּהְיֶֽה.

Hear, Yhwh, the voice of Yehudah
And may you restore him to his people
May his own hands be enough(?)
And may you be an עזר against his foes.

Two other, relatively well-known, occurrences are found at the beginning of the second “Song of Ascents (שִׁ֗יר לַֽמַּ֫עֲל֥וֹת)” in Psalms (121:1aβ–2):

אֶשָּׂ֣א עֵינַ֭י אֶל־הֶהָרִ֑ים
מֵאַ֝֗יִן יָבֹ֥א עֶזְרִֽי.
עֶזְרִי מֵעִ֣ם יְהוָ֑ה
עֹשֵׂ֝֗ה שָׁמַ֥יִם וָאָֽרֶץ.

I turn my eyes to the mountains:
from where will my עזר come?
My עזר is from Yhwh,
maker of heaven and earth.

As an עזר, Yhwh guards his supplicant from a variety of dangers (vv. 3–8) and preserves his very life (v. 7).

From what peril does the Woman in our story rescue the previously helpless Man? From loneliness, which is the first thing in creation – and in the Bible – that is said to be “not good” (Gen 2:18), and which is a serious enough problem to prompt the creation of the entire animal kingdom (vv. 19–20).

Non-Gender Equality at Creation - by Prof. RabbiTamara Cohn Eskenazi

https://www.thetorah.com/article/non-gender-equality-at-creation-the-other-benefits-of-partners

Partnership is not necessarily or even primarily a matter of evading loneliness. It is often a response to the recognition that having an “other” is significant if we are to be and flourish—someone who can adequately interact with us, take a stand, and not merely echo our views.

Emmanuel Levinas has highlighted the absolute significance of the other as other. Levinas posits as foundational our relation to the other whose distinctiveness as an other resists assimilation and whose face is a call to justice and responsibility. For Levinas, responding to such a face-to-face encounter defines what it means to be human. By being an “other”kenegdo, able to stand opposite and in relation, the envisioned partner is a helper. Being a counterpoint, and in this manner a call to responsibility and accountability (kenegdo), is what renders the other as “help” (ezer), and not (merely) a person who relieves us of our loneliness.

The Word Ezer is Not Feminine

I am often struck by the fact that God does not appear to consider gender as the basis for such an ezer. The term “help” in Gen 2:18 is in a masculine form. It could be rendered in feminine form in Hebrew as ezrah or ozeret, should a female have been the main goal (and some modern translations in fact convert the terms to feminine forms).^[4] But what do God’s words convey with ezer kenegdo?

God Can Also Be Keneged

‍I find Ps 16:8 helpful/useful in this connection.

שִׁוִּ֬יתִי יְ-הֹוָ֣ה לְנֶגְדִּ֣י תָמִ֑יד:

I keep Yhwh before me (le-negdi) always.

Here the speaker envisions God standing opposite him, using the same word Genesis uses for man and woman.

Equal Engagement with the Other: The Essence of Partnership

Something of the sort applies to Gen 2:18. Yet, there is a different kind of accountability when one confronts another human being who both shares in the category of humanity but is also not the same, someone who is a fitting “other.” And it is this kind of relation that God seems to want to create when the adam is given an equal partner.

As Levinas has taught us to see, the presence of an other bespeaks of accountability, of an engagement, of response whether in support or critique, elements that so much of the rest of the Torah seeks to inculcate. Standing to face the other, then, has a moral dimension significantly beyond relieving loneliness.