Rabbi Roodyn

Rav Hirsch continues with a beautiful piece distinguishing between Enosh and Adam that needs to be read slowly and carefully:

“And when egotism vanishes from the human heart in the face of the starry skies that proclaim G-d, how will his breast then swell once it is freed from the shackles of self adoration, and once he will recognise that singular greatness and splendour awaiting him who serves and glorifies himself but only G-d. What lofty emotions will overwhelm him who, beneath the starry skies, will come to understand that ‘G-d has called each star by its own same and set for it a path on which it must travel,’ so too G-d has called him too, by his own name and charted out the ways in which he must walk.

Then the Name of G-d, the concept of G-d shall spell ‘confinement’ and terror to Enosh in his pride; but liberation, preservation and source of joy undimmed to the heart of that man who shall have become conscious of being an ‘Adam´ in the service of G-d.

The Enosh and with him, ‘ enmity and vengeance’ shall be buried under the starry sky that proclaims the greatness of G-d, while Adam together with his ‘brotherhood and self -sacrificing devotion shall rejoice in his liberation. For the Adam shall learn כי תפקדנו, the great and word-redeeming mandate of duty, life’s task as set for him by G-d.

The man who has degenerated to the level of an Enosh knows only ‘his own  rights’ and regards as his duty only that which will aid him in the preservation and assertion of what he thinks are his rights. To him, his own ego constitutes the basis of his rights and the goal of his duties. The man who has risen to the level of Adam, however knows his duty, and seeks justification of his desires only within the framework of that which will aid him in carrying out his duty. To him, G-d is the source and the goal of his duty and the basis of his rights.”