The snake and his pirate-ship of treasure!

The Zohar hakadosh in Parshas Chayei Sarah 124:A explains the verse concerning the snake and Chava ואיבה אשית בינך ובין האשה - literally, "I will place an enmity between you and the woman..." in reference to the verse in Iyov 9:26 חלפו עם אוניות אבה - "traversed with boats of desire..." 

So what does the snake have to do with "boats" and how does that tie into the enmity between the snake and man?

To understand this, first we'll examine the meaning of the word אבה - "eyveh". According to Targum Yonasan, it refers to ships of dignitaries laden with treasures - אלפיא דטעינין מגדיא. The word אבה  - "desire" means "objects of desire", or treasures, in this context. (According to Rashi its simply the name of the swift river, but that does not help us for this).

According to the Ramban, in his perush on Iyov (his other great perush, aside from the Chumash) quotes a Targum that translates it as "swift ships of plunder" (like mercenaries or pirates), the "desire" here translates as the desire to plunder.

Already from this we can understand the snake as the evil inclination, always at the ready to fly towards its (our) desires, whether for honor and aggrandizement or as sinful plunder and thievery from the holy.

Kabbalisticaly, the meforshey Hazohar explain the boat as the ruling of the Klipa over the Kedusha, just as the boats rule the seas (Ashmores Haboker) or as a spiritual naval battle, between the good boats on the seas of holiness against the bad boats (R' Avraham Gilanti) on the seas of evil (the tehoma Raba - like ותשליך במצולות ים כל חטאתם - the sins sent down in the depths of the sea - Ramak). 

That is that the word איבה, in the context of the snake can simply  also mean "hatred" and exits in apposition to the love of Hashem. The "heichal eyva" in Klipa corresponding to the "heichal ha'ahava" in Kedusha the above as brought by R' Avraham Azulai, grandfather of the Chida, in Ohr Hachama).






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