Or HaChaim on Genesis 3:12/אור החיים על בראשית ג׳:י״ב

1 ויאמר האדם האשה אשר נתת עמדי. Adam said: "The woman You put with me." The manner of Adam's reply was so unseemly that one would not expect him to use it vis-a-vis the least important human being, certainly not when addressing the King of Kings. Besides, when Adam said: "she gave me from the tree, and I ate," why did he add the unnecessary words "from the tree?" We would all have understood that he referred to said tree without his repeating this. Eve did not bother to say that it was the tree she ate from.

2Apparently Adam did not know exactly what happened except that Eve had placed something before him and he had eaten without examining it. He had not felt the need to ask her what it was she had placed before him seeing that the whole earth was his to enjoy. He added "which You put with me" in justification for not having enquired where the fruit had come from. It was as if he had said to G'd that since G'd had supplied the woman, he, Adam, had no reason to be suspicious about her motives. After all, nothing evil originates in Heaven! Our sages have said: אין בודקין מן המזבח ולמעלה, "once something (a slaughtered animal) has arrived on the altar (having passed several stages of inspection on the way) there is no need to again check its suitability as a sacrifice." Adam argued that if the חזקה, the presumption of fitness of such an animal, is acceptable, then surely a woman supplied by G'd Himself need not be examined for blemishes.

3When Adam said: "from the tree," he referred to a tree planted within the garden seeing all those trees had been planted by G'd Himself (2,8-9). When Adam spoke of "the tree," he did not refer to the tree of knowledge which G'd had referred to. He described his situation before he had eaten from the fruit Eve gave him. At that time he thought the fruit was from any of a number of trees. It was only after he had tasted the fruit that he became aware that this fruit must have been from the tree of knowledge. Adam's argument then was not nearly as outrageous as it appears at first glance. Although one might even argue that Adam said he ate merely from the tree and not from its fruit, and that eating from the tree had not been forbidden, such an argument is not tenable for a number of reasons.

4As a result, Adam was merely a שוגג, an unintentional sinner. One might go further and claim that he was an innocent victim and thus not guilty at all. This would explain why G'd' did not curse Adam but only the earth. The truth is, however, that Adam acted carelessly in not accurately repeating G'd's command to Eve. He had mentioned only the fruit of the tree to Eve, not the prohibition of the tree itself. This inaccuracy paved the way for all the subsequent events.