Q: When I was growing up, our family was very close to the church and we read the Bible at home. Recently, I was watching a TV show about things left out of the Bible. The part about Adam and Eve caught my attention. The program said Eve was Adam’s second wife. His first wife—I think her name was Lilly—was made from the soil of the earth. The program suggested that Lilly was evil and eventually died with a curse to women. Did Lilly really exist? People I’ve spoken to have never heard of her.— J.

A: Pull up a chair and get ready for one of the weirdest stories you’ve ever heard: the story of Lilith (not Lilly).

First, you need to know the Hebrew word midrash, meaning “a story about a story in the Bible.” Midrashim (plural) helped to explain contradictory or difficult biblical passages through the use of stories and legends. The midrash about Lilith was meant to harmonize two seemingly contradictory passages in Genesis about the creation of the first man and woman.

In Genesis 1:27, we read: “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.” This verse clearly indicates that the first man and woman were created equal and at the same time. So far so good. No need for a midrash or Lilith or Lilly or anything. However, in Genesis chapter 2:7, we read: “Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

So here we have a very different version—the creation of a single person, a man, who was made from dirt (I presume it was male dirt). In the next verse, God places the single man in the Garden of Eden to dust things off and straighten things up. Stressing the man’s loneliness, we read of his life in Eden in Genesis 2:20: “And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help mate for him.”

God’s solution was the first matchmaking service. We read in Genesis 2:21-23: “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said: ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ ”

In this very different story of human creation, the woman is created second and is created out of the man, not out of the dirt that made Adam. She is given the name Eve in Genesis 3:20. (Interestingly, Adam is never actually named Adam. He’s always just the generic man.) The two stories seem very different and irreconcilable. Enter Lilith. Lilith is the way the two stories are made to fit, and for those who consider the Bible the inerrant word of God, this fitting is enormously welcome.

The midrash about Lilith imagines that the woman in Chapter One of Genesis is not the same woman as the woman (Eve) from Chapter Two and onward. The story about Lilith’s relationship with Adam is striking and, quite frankly, X-rated. It is told that Lilith was a beautiful woman with long flowing red hair and wings (OK, nobody’s perfect).

Adam is totally smitten with Lilith and approaches her in what I will describe in all modesty as a request for intimacy. His particular request is denied and the boor Adam, untutored in the ways of women, tries to press himself on Lilith. She becomes furious and flies off to the Red Sea. Goodbye, Lilith. Adam then complains to God that the woman God created for him had deserted him (not the precise truth).

God then dispatches three angels, Senoi, Sansenoi and Semangeloff (I think they now have a law firm in Manhattan). They find Lilith at the Red Sea and implore her to return to Adam. Still fuming, she says, “I will not stay with that man and be treated as an inferior person.” (Yes, Lilith was the first feminist). God agrees with Lilith and then creates Eve as Adam’s second wife.

The fact that Eve was created by God was intended to show that she had equal holiness, but the fact that she was created from Adam’s rib was perhaps intended to prevent further squabbling. I don’t know. The whole Lilith story is so strange.

Rabbi Marc Gellman is happy to try to answer your religious, personal or ethical questions. Send questions only to The God Squad, c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207, or e-mail them to

godsquadquestion@aol.com

.