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Why did Adam blame the woman God gave him for his sin? The shiur builds on the Maharal's reading that Adam's complaint revealed he saw God's gift of woman as a limitation, not a kindness — the ultimate failure of hakaras hatov. Real gratitude means recognizing that God made man incomplete precisely to give him the capacity for relationship and eternity. Without that recognition, no avodas Hashem (ה׳) is possible.
The shiur begins with a fundamental question from the Midrash on Parshas Noach: Why does the Torah (תורה) tell us the generation of the flood sinned through idolatry and licentiousness, if Rashi (רש"י) says the decree ultimately came only for their robbery (gezel)? The Mizrachi asks: if the punishment came for gezel, why mention the other sins at all? Moreover, gezel seems less severe than idolatry — so why was it the decisive sin? A parallel question arises from the Dor Haflaga (Tower of Babel generation). They were guilty of idolatry and rebellion against God — far worse sins than the Dor HaMabul — yet they were merely scattered, not destroyed. Rashi explains this was because they had shalom (peace) among themselves, whereas the Dor HaMabul did not. But this creates a logical difficulty: if their only redeeming quality was shalom, why did God destroy that very quality by scattering them and confusing their language? He should have addressed their idolatry instead.
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Parshas Noach, Parshas Bereishis
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