Genesis - Chapter 02 - Line 00054

Contemplative Summary

And the human said, “This time — bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. To this one shall be called woman, for from man she was taken.”

At last, speech arises — not as command, but as recognition. The first words of the human are poetry, a breath shaped by wonder. The phrase zot happa‘am, “this time,” carries relief and revelation, the moment when longing finds its mirror. Etsem me‘atsamai, “bone from my bones,” and basar mibbesari, “flesh from my flesh,” declare not hierarchy but belonging. The one before him is not another creature to be named, but a self encountered in otherness — same essence, distinct form.

Here, language becomes communion. The act of naming — yiqqare’ ishah — “she shall be called woman” — is not possession but recognition, a sound drawn from shared root: ishah from ish, difference born of unity. The human perceives through this encounter that identity is revealed in relationship; that wholeness speaks through the space between.

To contemplate this line is to feel the joy of recognition — the dawning awareness that love begins where reflection awakens. Every meeting that stirs the soul repeats this first declaration: this one, now, is of me and beyond me. To name another truly is to remember oneself in them — to speak the word that has always waited in the marrow to be heard.