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<DIV>Tackling another joke on another subject under another heading:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"What can I get for a rib" is an amusing punch line, but Adam did in fact
pay something more like an arm and a leg. The original Hebrew word which shows
up in English, Latin, Greek, etc. translated "rib" should more accurately be
translated "side." G-d took one side of Adam, and from it made a woman. What was
left over became a man.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The orthodox rabbi who explained the word to me (in Latin alphabet it is
generally rendered as <EM>tzela</EM>) insists that the original Adam had an
androgynous body, and when G-d put him into a deep sleep, this body was
separated into two sides, male and female.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>IMSHO, I doubt that. Since everything else more complex than a sponge was
already male and female before the creation of man, and since the original verse
on the creation of man says "male and female created he them" -- I suspect that
the existence of male and female bodies was not an afterthought at all, but that
the separation of the Image into male and female sides was done metaphysically,
to correspond to existing biology.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But either way, it takes both a male and a female to equal the image of
G-d. This also supplies some clue to why G-d is bent out of shape by same-sex
couples. Literally, the image is bent out of shape -- it does not reunite the
Adam.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV></BODY></HTML>