Or HaChaim on Genesis 2:18/אור החיים על בראשית ב׳:י״ח

1 ויאמר השם אלוקים לא טוב. The Lord G'd said: "It is not good for man to be alone, etc." This is difficult since G'd had mentioned already on the day He created man that the species had been created male and female (1,27). Another problem in the text is the expression אעשה, "I shall make for him a helpmate." The Torah then immediately proceeds to describe that the mammals and the birds were formed, i.e. ויצר השם אלוקים (2,19). This gives the impression that G'd intended one of these animals to be man's helpmate. Such a thought is not only extremely strange, but if true it would also result in one of those animals being deprived of its own mate! Besides, why did G'd have to put Adam to sleep and to remove part of his body? Could He not have formed woman as dust from the earth as He had formed man himself, especially since He formed Eve on the very same day He formed Adam (5,2) זכר ונקבה בראם? Our sages have given many homiletical explanations in answer to these questions, but they have not provided us with פשט, straightforward answers that justify the text as it stands.

2We may have to fall back on the opinions expressed in Berachot 61 that originally man was created with two faces in one body. The Talmud there offers two opinions as to what was removed from Adam, a tail or a face, respectively. This is a reasonable explanation because it justifies G'd's blessing or command to Adam to be fruitful and to multiply (1,28) at a time when woman had not yet been reported as a separate entity.

3It is in keeping with G'd's propensity for preparing everything good ahead of time, and providing many more opportunities for man to do good than evil. However, we must ask why He separated the two bodies enabling Eve to fall victim to the temptation by the serpent? This leads us to examine the cause of Adam's (Eve) sin, what happened to him and all of mankind as a result. We have found that woman became the cause of all that the world lost because the serpent prevailed over her in a match of wits. This occurred because Adam was not at her side at the time of Eve's encounter with the serpent. He was asleep as a result of having had marital relations with his wife (Bereshit Rabbah 19,3). Another version in the Midrash there suggests that G'd had taken him on a tour of the earth. As a result the serpent encountered Eve on her own and succeeded in seducing her. If the Torah had reported man's creation and the subsequent separation of Eve's body sequentially, without interposing Adam's experiences on earth in the interval, many people would have argued that what happened was all G'd's fault. They would have said that if G'd had not separated her body from that of her husband, thereby making a drastic change in what He had created originally, the serpent would never have had a chance to seduce Eve. In order to forestall such an argument the Torah tells us first the reason that G'd separated Eve's body from Adam's, i.e. in answer to Adam's own request. His observations of how the animals lived, male and female as separate bodies, had made him desirous of a similar arrangement. G'd had only the best of intentions, as usual. This is also the reason the Torah told us already at the outset that man was equipped to procreate from the moment he was created. Being one and the same body obviously had some of the same disadvantages as being a Siamese twin. G'd therefore decided it would be better for man's helpmate to be כנגדו, an appropriate complement, rather than the other half of his body. In this way she could be a help to him at all times instead of being a hindrance on occasion. Eve's being a separate body was not dictated by Adam's need to procreate. Seeing that the separation of her body served only to please Adam we must ask why none of the other creatures could have been trained to perform that task for Adam while leaving Eve in the state she had been created. The Torah therefore describes in verses 19 and 20 that Adam did indeed search for a suitable helpmate amongst all the other creatures but did not find one that was acceptable to him. Naming the animals, i.e. identifying their essence, was part of that search for a suitable helpmate. Eve's existence as a separate body from Adam had therefore become mandatory from Adam's point of view. It is totally incorrect to blame G'd for subsequent developments, such as Eve finding herself temporarily alone, facing an evil influence whose existence she had been quite unaware of. The Torah's report about both Adam's and Eve's innocence, i.e. their lack of shame at being nude, are all facts the Torah supplies to enable us to better understand the causes that led to the sin. Human relationships are based on people facing each other, i.e. כנגדו. The Torah describes Adam's profound joy when he finally beheld the partner who up until then had been hidden from him, i.e. had faced backwards. From G'd's point of view the original arrangement was perfectly acceptable, He had not created an imperfect human species. Any change was entirely in response to Adam's frame of mind, to accomodate him. Our sages have supplied us with numerous reasons why G'd did not create an entirely new human being to serve as Adam's helpmate. When Solomon told us in Kohelet (4,9) טובים השנים מן האחד, that two are better than one, that they can help each other, this has nothing to do with G'd having created man's form in such a way that he could have impregnated the wife which was part of him but facing backwards.

4Perhaps the objective reason G'd had created the human species as a pair in a single body was to distinguish between the functions of the bodies of the animals and the functions of the human body. Animals mate indiscriminately, i.e. a male will mate with any female available to him, the act of mating being merely a response to biological urges. The fact that the Torah on occasion stresses the זכר ונקבה element when mentioning animals as pairs such as when they entered Noach's ark, does not mean that they have exclusive partners. The average animal does not recognise a female of its species as specifically "his" female. This is not the way G'd wanted man to relate to the subject of mating. It would have been impossible for Adam to describe his wife as בשר מבשרי, flesh of my own, were it not for the fact that Eve had been part of his own body previously. The whole idea that man's זווג is arranged in heaven would have been impossible to understand but for the fact that the female of the species is considered man's "other half." This consideration may also be the reason that when the Torah legislated forbidden sexual relations (Leviticus 18) the subject is always the male. It is forbidden to engage in sexual intercourse with certain women as they could not possibly be your missing "half."