Another piece from my favorite topic. This time with a lot of sources, mostly Zohars that I saw in Rav Brevda's sefer on the Gra on Yonah, I highly recommend it, not that Rav Brevda needs my haskama.
The pasuk in this week's parsha says (9:9) "... I remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights; bread I did not eat, and water I did not drink." There is a midrash by Yaakov Avinu that says that he spent 14 years in Yeshivat Shem V'Aiver and did not sleep at all. We know that a person cannot possibly survive so long without eating drinking or sleeping, so how are these things possible? The gemara, which I have quoted before, gives us the answer. What was special about Yaakov and Moshe? When the gemara in Shabbat 146a says "In the time when the nachash came to Chava he put in her zuhama, when Bnei Yisrael stood on Har Sinai their zuhama stopped Rashi explains that at Har Sinai of the people there who were hurt were cured all the blind and deaf were cured... Rav Abba son of Kahana said the zuhama stopped Yaakov, because after three generations of holy people the zuhama was removed." Before we go through this gemara let us explain the story of Adam and Chava in a completely new way.
The Zohar Chelek Alef (124b) says "The body is to the neshama like a woman to a man. Meaning that a man in the torah represents the neshama and a woman represents the guf (body). In this light let us examine the story of Adam and Chava. So on the sixth day of creation Hashem creates man. Hashem first wants to create man and woman as one. The gemara in brachot explains that Chava was like an extra limb to Adam but not an equal. This means that the neshama was the dominant side while the body did not really do anything. Then Hashem decided to create man and woman separately. So He creates man (the neshama) and places him in Gan Eden. Hashem then tells the neshama to name all of the animals, and we know that Adam can see into the depths of each animal and know their names. The midrash, quoted by Rashi, says that Adam actually had relations with each of the animals, but only had true pleasure later when he was with Chava. What does this midrash mean? It means that Hashem placed the neshama into the world and asked it to choose a good body, after trying each one of them out the neshama was not satisfied with any of them. So Hashem put Adam to sleep and used part of Adam, the neshama to form Chava, the guf. This shows that some of the neshama is located inside the guf while some is outside of the guf. And the pasuk says (2:22) "and He (Hashem) brought her to the man," meaning that the guf was brought before the neshama. Now the pasuk says that Chava would be a "helper against him," this shows that the guf can either be a helper for the neshama to reach its shlaimut or be against it causing it damage and preventing it from fulfilling it's purpose.
Now to explain the nachash. The Zohar Chelek Alef (74b) says that there are both a male and female part of the sitrah achrah (evil force). The male is known as the Samech Mem and the female has three names one of which is nachash. There is a famous idea by the Gra that there are two forces that drive man 1) Tavni (desire) 2) Ca'asi (Anger). These two forces are the two forces that cause man to sin. Ca'asi is represented by the male sitrah achrah while Tavni is represented by the female force. So the nachash represents the force to follow your desires. The nachash got Chava, the guf to sin. So our gemara means that the nachash, who is also the yezter hara got the guf to fulfill it's desires by eating the Pri Eitz Hada'at Tov V'Rah. What is the idea of this pri? The zohar explains that the Eitz (tree) represents Eitzah (an idea). This idea seemed good, Tov, in the beginning but then was discovered to really be evil, Rah. This is what the Eitz Hada'at was. The gra in mishlei explains that this is exactly what the yetzer hara does. He gives you advise that you think is good but upon later examination you discover it was really bad the whole time. Before eating from the Eitz Hada'at man's yetzer hara was an outside force, but after the guf took in the Eiztah of the nachash the yetzer hara became an inner force, called zuhama. Now Hashem comes down to judge the Neshama and the Guf for the sin they did. The gemara in Sanhedrin (91a) says that the Guf says that the Neshama sinned... the the neshama says that the guf sinned... So too Hashem takes the neshama and throws it into the guf and judges them like one. This is the exact story that is said with Adam and Chava. First Hashem asks Adam why did you sin. Adam says it was Chava who did it. This means that Hashem says to the neshama, you are pure good, you are supposed to control the body, why did you mess up. The neshama says that it was not it's fault, the body sinned not me. Why should I, the neshama get punished? So then Hashem turns to the guf and asks for it's excuse. So the guf turns to the yetzer hara and said that the yezter hara gave it too hard of a test. When Hashem was coming to punish them Adam was totally confused, he did not know why he should be punished after all it was the guf that caused him to sin. Hashem explains that the neshama connects to the guf and any sins the guf does must later be fixed inside the neshama. So Hashem punishs the neshama and the guf. Then He turns to the nachash. He says that the nachash's test was too hard and that for now on the yetzer hara will not be able to give a person such a hard challenge for now on the yetzer hara will only be as powerful as the person is. This is what it means that Hashem removed the arms and legs of the nachash. As an outer force it was fair that the yetzer hara could challenge the guf with hard tests because it is a lot harder to be convinced of something when it is outside of you, but once the yezter hara became inner force it was too powerful so Hashem cut off some of it's power to make the fight fair.
Now there is a midrash a chazal that says that one time a rabbi (unsure if its a tanna or amora) went into Ma'arat Hachapaila and found the bodies of the Avot and Adam and Chava. Upon opening the casket of Yaakov he say that Yaakov's face was shining. Then when he went to open the casket of Adam and all he could see was Adam's feet which were shining brighter than Yaakov's face. Adam was still shining from being in Gan Eden even though he got kicked out and Yaakov was also on the level being of Gan Eden. We know that after Moshe came down from Har Sinai with the second luchot he had to wear a mask because the people could not look at his shining face. What do these three people have in common? Each of them reached a level that their zuhama were completely removed and they were completely ruled by there neshamot. The shining was from the light of their neshama that could be seen through there guf. See the gemara in Brachot 5b which speaks about Rav Yochanan who was in a cave and rolled up his sleeves to reveal his glowing arms.
As we see from our gemara both Yaakov and Moshe got to the level of man before the sin of the Adam HaRishon. This is hinted to by Yaakov when he fought with the angel, who was the yetzer hara in its external form. Being that both of these people were on such a high level they no longer were controlled by their guf, they no longer needed to sleep, eat or drink like the rest of us do. This is what it means that Yaakov went 14 years without sleeping and Moshe went 40 days without food or drink.
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