In light of what we have said above, we may now perhaps understand why the woman’s punishment is specifically that “in sorrow shall you bring forth children.” The sin of Adam and Chava was the first sin, the first expression of the disparity and incompatibility between the ideal, Godly world and the human reality. It expressed man’s inability to live up to Divine demands completely. In the wake of this sin, it becomes clear that the creation of man is not a simple matter; there is great complexity in this creation that combines body and soul.
From this point onwards, every birth of a new person is another collision between the material world and the spiritual world. This collision manifests itself in the pain and travail of childbirth.
Perhaps the woman brings a sin offering for the sin of Adam and Chava (as suggested by Recanati and Rabbeinu Bechaye), in which case its significance is that it comes to atone for the conflict between the material world and the spiritual world – a conflict that arises from man’s inherent complexity and that is expressed so forcefully specifically at his birth.
Summary
We have examined three different explanations as to why a woman who has given birth must bring a sin offering:
a. The sin offering is meant to atone for some sin (either her oath that she will bear no more children, or the sin of Adam and Chava, or some other sin that her travail in childbirth led her to commit)
b. The sin offering is not meant as atonement for sin, but rather represents part of the process of purification. (We explained that the birth process involves a certain “death,” and therefore the woman becomes impure)
c. The sin offering is brought not because of some sin that the woman has committed, but rather because of the necessary and inevitable collision between the spiritual world and the material world – a collision that is inherent to the creation of man. The sin offering atones for the incomplete and imperfect situation in which all mortals exist, and which finds its most powerful expression at the moment of encounter between the body and the soul – at birth. The Sin Offering of the Nazir
Just as the sin offering of the new mother requires some explanation, so too the sin offering of the nazir is perplexing:
Speak to Bnei Yisrael and say to them: when a man or a woman makes a special nazirite vow, to separate unto God…
Throughout the days of his separation he is holy unto God…
And he shall offer his sacrifice to God: one lamb of the first year without blemish as a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year as a sin offering, and a one ram without blemish as a peace offering. (Bamidbar 6:2,8,14)
A nazir is a person who seeks to draw close to God, to sanctify himself, and therefore he separates himself from the pleasures of this world. The Torah describes such a person as being “holy unto God.” Why, then, does he bring a sin offering at the conclusion of the period of his nazirite vows?
Here, too, various explanations have been proposed as to the reason for the sin offering. Some have suggested that the very assumption of the nazirite vow is problematic, since according to the Torah a person should not separate himself from the world.[12] Others explain that he takes the nazirite vow because of previous sins that he had committed,[13] requiring that he bring a sin offering.
Ramban (commenting on Bamidbar 6:14) asserts that the nazir brings a sin offering because he is leaving his special state of holiness and separateness and returning to the everyday life of this world.