Adam
What is humanity? Hashem poses this great existential question to the first Man only moments after his creation:
"Man's wisdom is greater than yours," Hashem said to His angels inShamayim. He proved His point by having the Man define the essence of every living creature, something the Angels were incapable of doing. "And you," said Hashem to the Man, "how do you define your own essence?" [1]
We wait with bated breath for deep philosophic insights from the person with the purest intellect ever created. Will he define his Divine soul? Will he differentiate himself as the only creature able to think, articulate ideas and communicate? Will he identify himself as the bridge between heaven and earth?
Man answers with a disappointing anticlimax: "I could suitably be called Adam," he says, "because I am created from earth (adamah)."[2] Is Man's earthly origin the feature that most significantly differentiates him from other creatures? Is the fact that he is created from earth the element that makes him unique? Is human greatness vested in the clod of silica from which he was first formed? Could Adam think of no more inspiring a term by which to define the essence of humanity than a term derived from the word "earth"?
Evolutionists, Creationists and the Philosophy of Adam
For centuries science has viewed humankind as an evolved species of animal. It believes that through our advanced evolution we have developed the added dimensions of intelligence and language that differentiate homo sapiens from other animal species.
Enlightened religious thinkers concede that our physical forms might have evolved from animal origins, but not our spiritual dimension. They insist that our intelligence and spirituality is not the outcome of evolution. At some point in the process, G-d intervened and superimposed a divine soul on our otherwise-animal bodies.
Traditional creationists see man as a unique being not evolved from any other species but created anew by the hand of G-d, formed from a clod of earth into which He breathed from His own Divine being.
Adam belongs to none of these schools of thought. Adam sees humankind not as an evolved member of the animal species, but as an enhanced member of the Angel species. He sees himself as a differentiated angel and it is his earthliness that differentiates him from other angels. His earthy component makes him unique among the angels. He is a spiritual force of Divine energy (like an angel) with an earthly connection and a physical form. Man can think and conceptualize like an angel but he can act like a human. He can grasp ideas that only angels can, but he can also create in ways that angels cannot. To Adam (and to Hashem) man is not a devolved angel but an enhanced one: "Man's wisdom is greater than yours."
Unlike angels, humans have an added component, an immense enhancement: Humans have a physical form that enables them to manifest the Divine on earth with their every thought, word and deed. Angels cannot do this. Humans can create ideas and innovate objects that transform lives. Angels cannot. Humans can inspire others, uplift them and teach them. Angels cannot. Coming from the perspective of the species of angel, Adam sees the fact that he, unlike other angels, is formed from earth as his single most important differentiator. He names himself Adam.
An angel with his feet on the ground
I have found adopting Adam's philosophy to be personally transformational. Facing challenging situations I try to think of myself not as "only human" but as an angel with an earthly link. Angels have a shelichut, a mission. And so do each of us. Nothing can stand in the way of an angel fulfilling his shelichut. As such, hardly anything is beyond my capability if it is aligned with my shelichut.
In each situation I try to determine why G-d has placed me in that situation, what is my shelichut in that situation, and what does He want me to accomplish for Him? Being an angel I can bring Kedusha(sanctity) down into the world. Being a human I can infuse thatKedusha into the lives of the people with whom I interface. Being a human I can access the souls of other people. Being an angel I can join their souls to their Creator connecting them to a spring of new spiritual energy.
Humans are conduits of spiritual energy between heaven and earth. We are the connectors between shamayim and eretz. Humans can access spiritual energy in the soul of the universe, absorb it, amplify it and connect it to shamayim. We do that every time we see sanctity in nature, in science, in relationships, in beauty or in other people. By conducting the energy of the universe to shamayim, we close the spiritual circuits of the world and facilitate the easy flow of spiritual energy throughout the universe and through us. We can do that because we are angels….but not ordinary angels: we are angels made from earth. We are Adam.
The Jew, like any other descendant of Adam, also conducts spiritual energy through the universe and connects shamayim and eretz(heaven and earth). But the Jew can do it in the reverse direction. The Jew through Tefillah and Limud haTorah can access spiritual energy, kedusha, directly from shamayim. We can transmit it down to earth and through our mitzvot, we can infuse that sanctity into the people and objects of the universe. We can do that because like Jacob's ladder our heads are in shamayim; we are angels. But we are not ordinary angels….like that ladder we are firmly placed on the earth from which we are made. And like that ladder, the angel-forces of spiritual sanctity flow up and down us. For we are angels…. but not ordinary angels: we are angels made from earth. We are Adam.
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