"Ladies and gentlemen: As promised, we are entering Paradise and taking an inquiring look around. First of all, let's take a look at that explanatory board which reads:

Visitor: 'Paradise' derives from a Persian word which was adopted as PARDES in Hebrew, meaning 'orchard'; it is nowadays mainly applied to the growing of citrus fruit.

Please follow me.

"We are now inside the well-preserved remnants of the original dwelling place of Eve, of her consort, and of their first son, Adam (meaning 'Man' in Hebrew). You will have the opportunity to visit the 'pardesim,' that is, the many orchards around this well-preserved prehistoric hut. Take a look at the streams and at the lush greenery. You might let your mind wander, seeing the trees and imagining which one was the forbidden tree of knowledge and which one the life tree.. They are metaphoric, of course.

"The 'Many faces of Eve,' used as the title of the present visit, refers to the several components making this story, which obviously deals with Mankind's ancient and still contemporary anxieties. However, the central distress touches mainly on Womankind' immanent source of anxiety. Remember Helen of Troy? How she was converted into the metaphor 'The face that launched a thousand ships'? Yes, Helen's face was the source of passionate love, war, and living poetry.
"But her face was the face that every woman looks at each time she sees herself on a mirror. This is the true face of Eve. You will listen now to a short story about Eve's face and how it shaped the world. Following it we shall try to find other metaphoric 'faces,' and then you'll be free to wander, to wonder and to ponder.

"Some 150,000 years ago, a woman referred to as Chava ('Life-giver'), and whom we shall call Eve, looked at her face for the first time on the limpid surface of a quiet stream, and realized that it caused her a pleasant feeling. Conditions were harsh and she had to struggle for survival, gathering food while her father went hunting. Some years later, she blossomed into a beautiful woman, while her father became feeble and couldn't provide for sustenance. A mature and powerful man took her father's place, and now he installed her in a spacious and very well provided hut, surrounded by fruit-bearing trees and leisurely flowing water streams--truly a paradise. She had been chosen amongst the many women around her, who looked at his magnificent figure as if it belonged to a god, and that was the nick name she applied to him. How happy she was, how care-free! While resting from the many hard chores she had to take care of, she played with her favorite snake, and marveled at molting time, watching how its worn-out skin peeled off and looked fresh again...
"With her god-mate she bore a son, whom she named Adam, just as Genesis tells us she said: 'I got myself a Man with God.' What else could she ask for? Adam grew to be a nice-looking adolescent, while Eve noticed her waning passion towards her 'god,' although he was an unfailing provider and --though somewhat remote-- still cared much for her. One day she looked pensively at herself on her water mirror, and for the first time she knew anxiety...

"Ladies and gentleman, let's have a short recess. There are refreshments or, if you prefer, unpolluted, er... I mean... recycled filtered water from one of the surrounding artificial streams..."

END OF FIRST PART