Bereishit 2021: On Creativity and Innovation
What we learn from Adam and Cain on the role of creativity and innovation at the dawn of humanity.
Creation. It is at the heart of all things. It is something we are born good at (see paperclip research here) and that school often kills. It is unsurprising that it is such a fundamental process given the idea of imitatio Dei, where we aspire to be like God. God is, first and foremost, a Creator. (Those interested can read my thoughts on this in ‘Creativity as Religion: Man in the Image of God.’)
The story of Adam and Eve is different than many first think. Because the story of Adam and Eve is actually about creativity and innovation and what one does when creativity goes awry. We learn this from a peculiar remark that Eve makes in Genesis 3:2. The serpent is speaking with her, and she asserts,
The woman replied to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden.
It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: ‘You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die.’”
The odd part is that Eve declares that God stated that she and Adam are not even permitted to touch the tree. A look back through the verses proves this is not so. In Genesis 2:16-17, God declares to Adam (note that Eve has not yet been created, and thus is not present to hear the warning)
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat;
but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for when you eat of it, you shall die.”
Given that Eve was not created at this point, it is clear that she only learns of the command not to eat from the tree from her partner, Adam. And this is where the rabbinic understanding of the text is important, because it sheds light on how Eve came to the conclusion that she was not even permitted to touch the tree.
In Bereshit Rabbah 19:3 it becomes clear that either Adam or Eve desired to “set a fence” around the Torah, which is why they added to the prohibition, saying that they should not even touch the tree. In some interpretations it is explicit that Adam was the one who came up with this (and it certainly seems logical given that Eve did not exist at the time that Adam was warned). The problem is that Adam innovated but he did not explain which part of the prohibition was his and which part was God’s. According to Midrash, this allowed for a weakness that enabled the serpent to seduce Eve.
When the serpent saw her exaggerating in this manner, he grabbed her and pushed her against the tree. "So, have you died?" he asked her. "Just as you were not stricken when you touched it, so will you not die when you eat from it."
Of course, Adam’s innovation, his use of creativity, ultimately led to tragedy. This is part of the reason that Eve was seduced by the words of the serpent and ultimately not only sinned but led him to sin.
It is also the reason that both Adam and Eve are punished when it comes to their creative capacity. In Genesis 3:16, Eve is told
And to the woman He said,
“I will make most severe
Your pangs in childbearing;
In pain shall you bear children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
The punishment is clear. The womb is the seat of creativity. It is the place where a child is created and formed over the period of nine months. There are obvious parallels to the creation process described in Genesis- a world that is “covered in water” and the “formless deep” with God’s spirit gliding over the face of the water is akin to the small zygote becoming a fetus encased within the amniotic sac, swimming in amniotic fluid, and enclosed in darkness, as the soul waits. (For a beautiful song that connects the experience of the fetus within the womb emerging into our world to the idea of human mortality, with death as a portal to the next world, see Abie Rotenberg’s “Conversation in the Womb.”’)
In Genesis 3:17-18, Adam is told
Cursed be the ground because of you;
By toil shall you eat of it
All the days of your life:Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you.
But your food shall be the grasses of the field;
Man has no womb. Whence lies his creativity? In his ability to till the earth, to make it fertile, to make it sprout and produce. (Not for nothing does the Midrash declare that nothing grew until Adam existed and prayed for rain. See Rashi to Bereishit 2:5.)
And so when humans misuse their creativity, they are punished pertaining to their creative abilities. Pain will accompany Eve’s ability to create new life. Pain will accompany Adam’s ability to create new life (upon the earth).
And so, you might expect the story to stop there. The humans are cowed, having learned that creativity is only for God, not for them. They should not innovate. They should never try again. They might even give up all hope!
But that’s not what happens.
Adam and Eve decide to have children, despite all that entails- the pain, the challenges. (That in and of itself was a momentous choice. They could have decided never to be intimate, to live and die as the sole inhabitants of Earth.)
Cain is born. And Cain has a brilliant, innovative idea. He wants to give a gift to God! And so it is Cain who brings “an offering from the fruit of the soil (Genesis 4:3).”
And Abel, his brother, is inspired by what Cain did. But he decides to do it differently. He refines the prototype. He decides not to just bring an offering from what he tends- the sheep- but rather he brought “the choicest of the firstlings of his flock (Genesis 4:4).”
This is Abel’s creativity at work. He sees Cain’s idea, that of offering a sacrifice. And he is excited about it. What Abel does that is new, and creative, is to offer the best of what he has to God.
And God accepts his offering- and does not accept Cain’s.
Cain is dejected, and hurt. After all, he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place! So how can it be that Abel’s offering has been accepted, while Cain’s has not?
This is when God gives Cain some important advice.
And the LORD said to Cain,
“Why are you distressed,
And why is your face fallen?Surely, if you do right,
shall it not be lifted up?
But if you do not do right
Sin couches at the door;
Its urge is toward you,
Yet you can be its master.”
Here is what God is saying.
“Cain, why are you sad that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted? He perfected your innovation! This is a learning experience- an instructive example of failure. You too can perfect your offering process. And when that happens, your offering will also be accepted. But if you refuse to learn from this, if you only remain mired in your jealousy and feelings of failure, sin lies waiting for you.”
Unfortunately, Cain was unable to deal with his feelings with failure, and to learn from his brother’s creativity. Instead, figuring the best way to dispel his feelings of inferiority was to do away with the person who surpassed him, he commits the first murder.
There are many examples of companies who followed Cain’s approach, but I’ll pick one to illustrate the principle: Blockbuster.
I grew up in the age of Blockbuster, that family friendly video store that we would venture to on a Saturday or Sunday night. We would pick up some candy, browse the aisles, and hope that the DVDs we were renting proved enjoyable. It was an outing for the whole family, it was fun, it seemed like the way of the future. Until, of course, it wasn’t.
What happened? It’s a complicated story, but I want to focus on one part of it- the doomed meeting between Netflix and Blockbuster. At the time, Netflix was willing to sell their company to Blockbuster for $50 million. Here’s an excerpt:
The objections were just what we had anticipated. “The dot-com hysteria is completely overblown,” Antioco said. Stead informed us that the business models of most online ventures, Netflix included, just weren’t sustainable. They would burn cash forever. Finally, after Barry and I parried back and forth with them over the major objections, Stead raised his hand and waited for everyone to be quiet. “If we were to buy you,” he started, pausing for emphasis, “what are you thinking? I mean, a number. What are we talking about here?”
We had rehearsed this. Or at least we had rehearsed it about as well as three people can on a plane at 5 a.m. “We’ve taken a look at recent comparables,” Barry began, teeing up his own pitch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Reed fidgeting. I had seen this before. It was just a matter of time before he lost patience. Hold...hold...
“Fifty million,” Reed finally interrupted.
Barry stopped. He looked at Reed, his hands falling into his lap, then smiled at Antioco and Stead. He shrugged. What more was there to say?
Through Reed’s pitch and Barry’s windup, I had been watching Antioco. I had seen him use all the tricks that I’d also learned over the years: lean in, make eye contact, nod slowly when the speaker turns in your direction. Frame questions in a way that makes it clear you’re listening. But now that Reed had named a number, I saw something new, something I didn’t recognize, his earnest expression slightly unbalanced by a turning up at the corner of his mouth. It was tiny, involuntary, and vanished almost immediately. But as soon as I saw it, I knew what was happening: John Antioco was struggling not to laugh.
Blockbuster didn’t see that Netflix had come up with something profound, creative and game-changing. They thought it was ridiculous. And so they laughed it out of the room. They refused to adapt.
There are various iterations of this story with different individuals. Steve Jobs is one that comes to mind- pushed out of the company he helped found, he eventually became a household name, transforming what we thought devices could be.
But all these creators, these innovators- had to push through the difficult times. Had to listen when people gave them feedback they did not like or when they experienced failure. Had to remain resilient, use grit, and get back on their feet. Choosing to ignore the reality they faced, or attempting to get rid of the competitor rather than adapting to the new climate and creating a product that was better than the competitor’s, usually led to disaster. (Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” sheds light on why Macs took off over PCs, and part of it was design/ creating a product people wanted, but part of it was marketing and figuring out who their audience was.)
God was a helpful audience. He told Cain exactly what He wanted of him. But Cain refused to hear him. He refused to learn from failure, to engage in the design thinking process, to adapt and reiterate. And so we are left with the story of what could have been.
Cain does continue to innovate. He builds the first city. His family line yields Jabal, who innovates tent life, Jubal, who created musical instruments, and Tubal Cain who formed the first weapons of copper and iron. In the rabbinic imagination, all these innovations are problematic- created for the purpose of idol worship or hurting others.
So where is the redemption here?
It lies in Adam.
His first son is a murderer. His second son is dead. But he and Eve decide to start anew. They don’t fall into despair. And so they create- again.
Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, meaning, “God has provided me with another offspring in place of Abel,” for Cain had killed him. And to Seth, in turn, a son was born, and he named him Enosh. It was then that men began to invoke the LORD by name.
Can you imagine the courage it must have taken Adam and Eve to begin anew? Adam’s first attempt at innovation led to him and Eve becoming mortal, having their creative capacity associated with pain, and being evicted from the Garden of Eden. Their second attempt at creativity- has ended with death and murder. They would be well within their rights to give up. To decide they were done.
But they don’t. They begin again. Adam and Eve are not fragile, like Cain was. They can endure pain and decide to move forward. And this is what they do. It is this third child, Seth, who is a testament to their willingness to believe in a better future, perhaps even in their ability to parent differently, who brings God back into the picture.
And so it is with us. Every one of us will go through seasons of darkness, of despair, feeling the void creeping up on us. Every one of us will compare ourselves to others and see people who are better than us, more creative than us, more innovative than us. We may feel jealous. We may wish those people were gone, or even, in our heart of hearts, dead. Maybe we will even act against them. Or maybe we will suffer unbearable, unendurable loss.
So what makes us Godlike? Our ability to persist- to begin anew- to remain creative in the face of these challenges. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has a gorgeous meditation on this entitled ‘Recreating the Destroyed World’ in ‘The Rav: The World of Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Volume 2’ by Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. It’s worth reading the whole piece. But I’ll conclude with this part:
Today, we must judge the Torah world we are reconstructing after the Holocaust as “very good,” even though earlier ones may have been even more beautiful. I am very proud of the Maimonides Day School in Boston. Many times I test the students on the Humash and Rashi that they are studying. I am impressed by their knowledge and inspired by their achievements. Then I ask myself why I am so excited by such small accomplishments. After all, I saw the giants of European Torah Jewry before the Holocaust. […] Why am I so impressed that American youngsters can master a little Humash with Rashi, the rudiments of Torah study?
This is the message of the recreation of the destroyed worlds. A Jew has to know how to emulate God, and like God, to continue to create even after his former world has been eradicated. True, what I have in Boston may not be as beautiful as the European Torah world before the Holocaust. Nevertheless, it is the world we now have. We have to continue to build it and not look back. We must not be cynical, and we should direct our attention and efforts to the future. We must look ahead!
Creativity- very creative angle!