And Adam said, "This one is it! Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This one will be called woman for from man she was taken, this one" (Gen 2:23)

Translating this verse into English is fraught, given the negative connotations of "this one" in English. It seems impersonal or distant at best, objectifying at worst. But nothing could be further from the truth in the Hebrew, which expresses Adam's sheer delight, exuberance, and wonder. We could try a dynamic equivalent - "Wow! She's brilliant! She matches me!" - but I shudder at the clunkiness and shallowness of such. This is one of those linguistic "you had to be there" moments - anything other than the Hebrew falls short of the glory of the original.

What fascinates me, though, is this: why poetry? Why does this encounter require poetry to render the experience? Some scholars suggest that story focuses on what happened but poetry focuses on what is or what is thought. And herein lies, in my view, the answer: what matters is not the "happening" of the creation of the woman, but the "is" of the encounter itself. It is a moment of spontaneous prehension, a caught-by-surprise moment, a Gestalt 'aha' -- "This one! This one is the one!"

There is something in this, finally, that speaks more broadly to the human project. And as ever, it lies in the minute particulars of the Hebrew text: note first that the verb "call" is passive. Adam does not bestow the name ishah, 'woman' rather, yiqqareh ishah 'she will be called woman'. Not only does this undermine patriarchal readings, it is as if the experience of truly seeing an other person must reach out to involve others, someone else will call her ishah.

And then, we note that Adam names himself ish, 'man', here for the first time. He deepens his self-identity from simply being adam connected to adamah, 'human' to 'humus', to being ish connected to ishah, 'man' to 'woman'. So this we eventually realize is not only a moment of sheer delight, it is an awakening into the human-to-human mystery of profound solidarity, connection, and, indeed, transformation.

It's true: in seeing the other as they truly are, we learn to see ourselves anew. And surely only poetry will suffice for such.

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