There’s a very interesting Gemarah in Masechet Avodah Zara, Dafח Amud א ,with an important lesson for us.
The Gemarah mentions two facts about Adam HaRishon. As we all know, Adam HaRishon was told that the day he ate from the tree, he’d die. But he didn’t actually die the day he ate from the tree, he lived to be 930 yrs old. There are different explanations as to what this means. The simple explanation is that with his sin, he brought death to the world- otherwise they would have lived forever.
So it wasn’t that he’d die right away. But Adam HaRishon didn’t know exactly what his death penalty was. The Gemarah tells us of two times that Adam HaRishon was concerned that his death penalty had come.
The first mentioned is Day 1 of creation, which many explain as Motzei Shabbat because the sun stayed out for 36 hours and didn’t set until after Shabbat, so Shabbat protected him.
According to the Yaavetz and Reb Yeshaya Pinto, on Motzei Shabbat when the sun set for the first time, Adam HaRishon said, “Woe to me. I sinned, and the world is getting dark because of me. The world is going to revert back to nothingness- this is the death penalty decreed upon me.” He and Chava then spent the night crying together. In the morning, when the sun came up again, he realized it was the minhag of the Olam - the way of the world, and he brought a korban to thank Hashem that he didn’t die.
Later in the year, (according to the idea that Adam HaRishon was created on the first day of Tishre) the days slowly grew shorter and shorter, until they were very short in the month of Tevet. And again, Adam said, “Woe unto me, the world is becoming dark from me. Due to my sin, the world will return to nothingness.” So, he fasted and prayed for eight days.
Then, when he saw that the days started getting longer again, he realized it was the way of the world, and he made an eight-day holiday to celebrate that the world wasn’t actually going back to nothingness.
The Ritva asks how Adam HaRishon, with wisdom like an angel of G-d, could have made such a mistake. He explains that possibly Adam’s sin, and the pain of his sin, caused him to be confused and not think straight. From this we see an interesting principle that, if happened to Adam HaRishon on his level, can happen to anybody: On his level, Adam HaRishon sinned, then wasn’t thinking straight, then started to panic, when there was really nothing to panic over.
Rav Chaim Vital says that when Adam HaRishon and Chava listened to the snake, they were cursed. Adam’s curse was that he would work with עצבון /sadness. Chava’s curse was that she’d give birth with sadness. This means that the snake introduced depression and sadness into the world, which really should not have been there.
This is the point: Once we sin, we no longer look at things the right way. The sin brings us down. Sin brings sadness and worry. The word עצב also means worry. That’s what happens due to sin. Worrying and nervousness came from the snake. We aren’t supposed to worry and panic.
So, let’s learn the lesson from the original man and his wife, who were worried and nervous. They spent their first night of marriage crying- crying over nothing. The world was not going to turn back into nothingness; the sky wasn’t falling down. And later on, they repeated their mistake again, when the days started getting shorter. The world wasn’t turning into nothingness. It was their fear and panic. Although we aren’t trying to psycho-analyze Adam HaRishon, this is what’s called, catastrophic thinking. A common example of this would be, on a snowy night, when a man is out driving and sees how slippery the roads are, he calls his wife. When she doesn’t answer, he immediately imagines that she took the kids out and got into a car accident. Where did he get that from? From nothing.
That’s catastrophic thinking. The whole mistaken approach is due to our sins. How do we fight back? Rav Chaim Vital says we fight back with Simcha shel Mitzvah- with the happiness that comes from spirituality. The statutes of Hashem are upright and bring happiness.
We have to understand that Torah, mitzvot and Bitachon are the sources of our happiness. The Yetzer Hara who, like the snake, we think is trying to help us, is really responsible for all the sadness and worry in the world. The more involved we are with Torah and mitzvot, the more we benefit from the true source for happiness and being positive. Be’Ezrat Hashem, we connect to Torah and mitzvot, and not fall into the trap of the snake, who was able to influence Adam HaRishon and cause him to be sad and worry, when in truth there was nothing to worry about.
Have a wonderful day.