According to Hebrew tradition, Adam’s first wife was not the well-known helpmate Eve, but the first woman, Lilith. As legend tells it, Lilith and Adam lived happily in the Garden of Eden until one fateful day, when Adam decided that during sexual intercourse he should be on top, so that he would be closer to the heavens, and, therefore, to God, and Lilith would be forced to look up to him. Lilith would have none of it, and, uttering the secret name of God, flew off to the ocean. Adam was devastated by Lilith’s abandonment of him, and continually badgered God to force her to come back. Finally, fed up with Adam’s whining, God sent a delegation of angels on Adam’s behalf to plead with Lilith to return to Eden and to her husband. Lilith flatly refused, preferring instead to live on the shore with her demon lover, who was apparently more egalitarian in his lovemaking. Neither God nor his angels were powerful enough to force her to return to Eden, so God laid a curse on Lilith, that from then on, she would bear a hundred demon children every day. Then God created Eve…