{"id":52701,"date":"2019-03-31T22:05:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=52701"},"modified":"2019-03-31T22:05:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:05:38","slug":"relationship-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/relationship-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Relationship With God"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"52701","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34285,"related_cahpter":"2005","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Genesis 4:1 - \u201cNow the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, \u2018I have gained a male child with the help of the LORD.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n","content":"

Following chapter 3, the drama of the Garden of Eden, chapter 4 begins by chronicling the first couple\u2019s tentative, first steps into life outside the Garden. Bereft of paradise, exiled from the intimate embrace of the divine presence, Adam and Eve \u00a0find each other instead: \u201cNow the man knew his wife Eve\u201d. Rather than succumbing to the enormity of their failure, they begin the challenging – but hopeful – work of building a family: \u201cand she conceived and bore Cain.\u201d Notice how seamlessly the verse links their union to pregnancy and birth. Contrary to the reader\u2019s expectations, there is no report of pain or struggle in this process!<\/span><\/p>\n

Eve\u2019s pregnancy and birth experience might very well have been as painful as promised, but we are not privy to hear about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, at the verse\u2019s end, a startling opportunity to enter Eve\u2019s thoughts arises, and we can consider how she viewed the life-changing moment of becoming a mother. At Cain\u2019s (\u201cKayin\u201d) birth, she proclaimed, \u201cI have gained (<\/span>kaniti<\/span><\/i>) a male child with the help of the LORD.\u201d Biblical naming is synonymous with power, and like God and Adam in the early Genesis chapters, Eve comes into her own as a full agent when she bestows upon Cain his name. But paying close attention to naming in the Bible also allows access to the specific thoughts and feelings of those who give out names.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so we come to Genesis 4:1 and ask: What <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> Eve feeling? The first thing to notice is her prominent subjectivity, \u201c<\/span>I<\/b> have gained\u201d (<\/span>kaniti<\/span><\/i>). She is neither undone nor overcome by motherhood, but she emerges with a strong \u201cI\u201d. An \u201cI\u201d which does not rely on Adam for its heft, for he doesn\u2019t even register in her thoughts. <\/span><\/p>\n

Second, Eve sees herself in relationship with God, the very God who castigated and exiled her. She has gained a son from Him: He must still love her! This child is hers, and she knows its source – the LORD. She is grateful, or proud to have received the child, or perhaps relieved she is still in His favor. <\/span><\/p>\n

Others translate the word \u201ckaniti\u201d as \u2018I created\u2019. Boldly, Eve recognizes that she has brought a child into being — together with God. The power! The wonder! What her body can do astounds her, and she shouts it aloud. If there was pain, she absorbs it. What lingers from the birthing room is her powerful new sense of self and her abiding, renewed relationship with her Maker <\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, when I read the Bible, I feel envy for those who lived up close to, conversed with and knew God in a way entirely unknown to me. And then there is Eve, who lived in intimate quarters with the Divine- for just a moment- but who spent a lifetime without divine encounter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eve teaches me what it takes to live in relationship with God: radical imagination and the will to see one\u2019s life experience as evidence of that relationship. <\/span><\/p>\n

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