Baḏ: Isolation Splits Us
“The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’ (Genesis 2:18)
In the enchanting tale of the beginning of all things, waves of material goodness spawned ex nihilo across the cosmos.
Brightness, galaxies, tributaries, redwood seedlings, pomegranates, salmon, herons, and porcupines.
Breathtaking was it all - the atmosphere of pleasure and peace and fertility that filled every cell of creation.
Then man - 'āḏām - was formed, of little more than dust and breath. But it was enough. With Adonai, it always is.
He, like all that the Maker had crafted, was inherently good, yet there was something of an extrinsic condition that impeded upon his absolute and embodied experience of this goodness.
The man was alone.
Alone - baḏ, in Hebrew - is separation. It’s the state of being disconnected and split off, like that of a branch broken from a tree or a limb from a body.
It implies existing outside of a whole for which we each have been designed.
And this is important, for all of humanity has been designed in such a way that can only experience the fullness of God’s goodness in the context of relationship. It is something without which causes hinderance to our flourishing.
Said plainly: we need each other - to belong - to know and be known by those who bear our very image. At our neurobiological core, we are each meant for bonds of trust, respect, and care.
When God saw this reality and named it, He placed Woman in the garden with Man, to dwell together in the intimacy of their likeness and difference.
Yet breaches in their connection would soon be made.
The serpent would alone target the Woman. Man and Woman would hide themselves apart from Elohim. When confronted, the Man would dissociate himself from the Woman, as Woman would from creation.
Rupture after rupture created chasms between Man and Woman - within themselves and between each other and God and the natural world. Fragmentation occurred at every level, bearing a resounding echo that, indeed, “it is not good… to be alone.”
It is in relationship that we are most wounded, and so too is it in relationship that we find healing and restored wholeness.
And herein lies an astounding truth: Relationship not only precedes the mending of our triune selves, but it is in fact the only context in which restoration is possible.
Too often do we speak of brokenness as a primarily individualistic condition of moral defectiveness, but how very little does it do us to entertain discourse around our sin prior to the security of relational kindness and trust.
It is our sense of interpersonal safety (or lack thereof) that will ultimately dictate our ability to address the whole quandary of our tainted hearts (and each degree of shame attached to it), for there is no touching the thorn of sin without feeling the prick of shame, and there is no exposure of our shame without the risk of being known in full by one who has been deemed empathic and kind.
Simply consider the Prodigal Son, perhaps in contrast to the undoing of Adam and Eve. This younger son - filled with astounding dishonor and shame - reached a point in which he found no life could exist in his isolation. In great courage and terror, the boy risked reentry into relationship with the very Father against whom he brought utmost offense. But then, in unexpected mercy, the kindness of the Father met his son with renewed belonging - the only condition in which goodness can be wholly experienced.
Again, it is right to say that we cannot know the fullness of God’s goodness without the depths of compassionate connection with one another. Only in mended relationship can we experience the mending of our hearts and the shalom that first filled inner Eden.
As branches of one tree and parts of one body, we are made to function most harmoniously when a part of one another and the source of our life, receiving all that is good from Yeshua who is the vine and the head (John 15, 1 Corinthians 12, Colossians 1).
Bonus:
There are tons of studies that show how loneliness can increase risk of heart attack and stroke, even increasing premature death by 26%. Being known and experiencing belonging in meaningful friendship truly is a biological need that exists in us all. (Check out this article by the APA here)
Christena Cleveland wrote a masterful sociological book on the divisions of the American Church called Disunity in Christ. Highly recommend! As far as something that dives into the deep end of our need for one another… everything Curt Thompson writes is my favorite! Also, Andy Crouch’s The Life We’re Looking For is great!
