814. “He will strike you on the head, and you will strike him in the heel.” This is the way of the serpent; man’s striking of it is only on the head, and the biting of the person by a snake is only in the heel.
815. There is no killing of a snake except on the head. And who is the head? It is the head of the seminary, meaning that the power of the serpent is not canceled as long as the heads of the generation did not repent. The snake does not kill a person except in the heel, when he commits transgressions and tramples them with the heel, as it is written, “The iniquity at my heels surrounds me.”
816. It is written, “Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of emptiness and sin as if with a cart rope.” That is, he commits transgressions and tramples them with the heel, thinking about them that they are nothing, that they are like the cords of emptiness that the spider weaves. And afterwards, they are sins as if with cart ropes, which are strong and hard. Finally, all the transgressions accumulate and kill the person. And he also says, “and you will strike him in the heel,” in that iniquity of the heel; the evil inclination kills the person.
817. As they were corrupted, so they were judged: the serpent first, then the woman, and then the man, as it is written, “And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife.’”
818. If Adam sinned, what sin did Adamah [the earth/ground] commit? When the man was created, heaven and earth were witnesses. This teaches that the Creator made them witnesses to what the man would do, so he would not say “Who sees me?” and those witnesses publicize his sins, as it is written, “The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him.”
819. In the day when Adam transgressed, the sky darkened their light, and the earth did not know what to do, until the Creator came and cursed her for delaying with her testimony, that she will no longer give her strength to sow and harvest as in the beginning, and she remained in her curses until Abraham the patriarch came and the world was perfumed.
820. When Noah came, it is written, “This one will comfort us concerning our deeds and the sadness of our hands.” This is why she is named after him, as it is written, “a man of the ground,” for having emerged from her curse for him.”
821. When Adam HaRishon was expelled from the Garden of Eden, he thought he would die immediately, and was crying and begging, and repented until the Creator accepted his repentance and prolonged his days, and carried out His word in him, as it is written, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die,” and gave him His day, which is a thousand years, indicating to the whole world that the Creator is gracious and merciful, and accepts those who repent, and wants them only to live, as it is written, “for why will you die, O house of Israel? … Turn back and live.”
822. Happy are the children to whom the father says so. Woe to those sons who do not hear from Him. You find everywhere that when Israel sin and repent before Him, He stretches out His hand and accepts them, and immediately forgives them, as it is written, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression.”