Obviously they’d heard the story of Adam and Eve.
“But do you know about the strange punishment of the snake?”
Annamae shot a look at Danny: Do I?
He responded in kind: Search me.
Even their mother looked perplexed.
So Rav Harriett told them:
For beguiling the woman, for persuading her to eat the apple, God punished the snake. The punishment was: “On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.”
The ancient sages scratched their heads when contemplating this part of the story. They tugged on their beards and looked around the table in the study house and asked one another, “If the snake is going to eat dust, it’ll never go hungry. What kind of punishment is that?”
It was very strange, everyone agreed.
Until one of the ancient sages, Rabbi Simcha Bunim, figured it out. He said, “Aha! That is the punishment: The snake will never know lack.
“The snake, unfortunately, has all its needs provided for.”