Have you ever wondered about Adam’s relationship with his children. Abel was dead; Cain was on the move; and Seth was presumably at home. What about his grand-children? Adam lived 930 years, the Torah tells us, long enough to see eight generations of descendants, down to Lamech.
Maybe Methuselah, Lamech’s dad, would sometimes tell his little son, “Hey, Lamech, why don’t go you and visit your great-great-great-(skip a few)-grandfather Adam? Look, you can bring him some shiny apples. Be a good boy.”
Now, you can imagine little Lamech perched on Adam’s wrinkled knee and asking his ancestor about the old days. Can Adam resist regaling him with tales of the Garden of Eden? “Oh, we had it mighty good in there, I can tell you. The weather was perfect, everything grew easily, the produce was delicious.” And then Lamech asks what happened, and Adam tells him, and Lamech slips off his knee and turns to his ancestor with a look of disgust. “You mean, I’d have been on Easy Street but for what you did? You’ve ruined my life! I hate you! I hate you! And I’m never coming back.”
I’ve often wondered why the Torah tells us Adam lived through all those generations: Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Yered, Enoch, Methuselah and Lamech. I used to think they had close family ties from generation to generation. But if Adam admitted what he did, and the consequences for humanity, I can’t imagine his descendants forgiving him. Maybe he lived out his very long years without a single loving visitor.
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