Rabbi Shlomo

According to Hasidic Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (1925 – 1994), “original sin” is rooted in gender inequality. According to Rabbi Shlomo, in the Garden of Eden, God spoke directly to Adam and through Adam, the ‘Rebbe of Eden’, to Eve. Eve’s innate sense of justice (we all have such a sense) told her that something about this arrangement was not right: “I wonder why he wouldn’t talk to me straight.”

This created opportunity for the snake (injustice feeds on injustice): “If you eat the apple, (God) talks to you straight.” Understandably, this made sense to Eve. She ate the apple and the rest, as they say, is ‘history’…or in this case, ‘proto-history’. One single injustice (gender inequality) became the mother of all injustice. From a single act of gender bias it is too short a heap to the Holocaust.

So, there is no such thing as a ‘small injustice’. Every injustice is the seed of all injustice. Therefore, it is our task and, indeed, the task of all creation, to remove all injustice, root and branch, from the world.

Today, many people mistakenly regard Genesis as dated…and scientifically wrong; but what could possibly be more 21st century than Rabbi Shlomo’s interpretation?