A couple from long ago
In our time, as we repeatedly see, procreation is conceived as separated or not necessarily connected with a sexual act. We also see an increasing practice of sexual encounters meant to be contingent, not related to love, to any illusion, or delusion, of being two. What originally seemed to be together shows itself now as separated.
This separation has been made possible by science and has been pushed forward by the fact that there is no longer a common opinion on the best ways of enjoyment of the bodies. And no longer is the body itself showing any belonging to a sexual group. Male and female are very liquid concepts.
Very long ago, at the beginning of monotheism, a tale was told – thereafter written and sealed in the Bible – about what female and male are as to the speaking animal, to humans. The Genesis brings together all the animals, including us as created in two different sexes (Gen, I-27). An elaboration is then included, however, of the fact that for these special animals that talk, the question of the two sexes is a bit more complicated, and needs explanation.
So we find Adam on his own (Gen. II-18), created as One alone and, according to God’s appreciation, suffering from his solitude. Faced with this problem, having presented to Adam all the animals of the Garden of Eden, and seeing that none of them was a possible solution, God created Eve, from Adam’s rib, as an ezer kenegdo, a helpmeet against him.
More than once is the expression “helpmeet against” mentioned by Lacan in Seminar 23. The first time, he describes his starting point: “I try to take my bearing from this condition,” when he brings to Man, not a “helpmeet for him,” but a “helpmeet against him.” [1]
The second time, he is answering a written question on the analyst as a “helpmeet against”. Lacan says: “The psychoanalyst is a helpmeet that may be said to be a reversal in the terms of Genesis, since the Other of the Other is a little hole.” [2] This little hole can help, he claims, since the hypothesis of the unconscious implies the Name of the Father. Psychoanalysis proves that it is possible to bypass the Name of the Father. “One can just as well bypass it, on the condition that one makes use of it.” [3]
When the Bible tried to imagine, to think the logical relation between these two, it uses the name of the father, that is, language. First, Adam himself claimed that he would accept the woman as his helpmeet against, because this time, unlike when the other animals were presented to him, this one is bone from his bones and flesh from his flesh, which is why it should be called woman.
Now, how would a body be able to enjoy from another body and to separate from autoerotic jouissance? What would enable the desire of another body? What would enable erotics? The best solution back then was seemingly the one God invented: the woman would be ezer kenegdo, “helpmeet against him.” Kenegdo, “against him”, brought about many interpretations.
Jacques-Alain Miller mentions some views of Rabbis that part “helpmeet” from “against him.” Woman will be of help to Man if he deserves it, and will be against him if he is not righteous or not worthy. Reward or punishment. [4]
A Rabbi helped me look for an interpretation that wouldn’t oppose the two parts of ezer kenegdo. He found for me that Ramban reads it as bearing both qualities: the helpmeet should be against him, in front of him. Being able to see each other, they separate and come together when they want. [5] This reading of the Ramban includes the movements of desire. Kenegdo can also be read in its meaning of “against him” in disagreement or controversy. The woman helps and disagrees.
Knowing that there is no sexual relation, since the biological fact of male and female does not rule in the life of the speaking body, we can see the “against him” as the sinthome that enables to abandon the autoerotic, sole jouissance of the own body, and allows the illusions of love.
Since dwelling both in language means equivalence, therefore no sexual relation, [6] it is through language that humans invent their own way of being able to enjoy the one own body through another body. And this is the advantage of the invention of the woman as sinthome. Helpmeet against him.
Photography: ©Véronique Servais
[1] Lacan, J., The Seminar, Book XXIII. The Sinthome, ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by A.R. Price, Polity Press, New York, 2016, p. 20.
[2] Ibid., p.116.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Miller, J.-A, “A Note Threaded Stitch by Stitch”, in Lacan, J., op. cit., p. 215-216.
[5] Nachmanides, “On Genesis 2.18”, https://www.sefaria.org/Ramban_on_Genesis.2.18?lang=bi
[6] Lacan, J., op. cit., p 84.
