Hashem lamenting to Adam after he hid: "you used to delight talking to Me" - Source?

Question

*During learning recently I stumbled across a beautiful passage (most likely a midrash) where Hashem was crying about how He missed is surprised how Adam would delight in talking to Him, but now he is hiding etc.

I can't find it anymore. Does anyone know where it is?

Edit: I found it. It's Josephus so not a midrash or Torah source like I thought, and I got a few things wrong too. However I will still award the bounty to an answer and will do so based on whichever answer can find an authentic Torah source that is conceivably of the same line of thought or similar source to Josephus.

Answer 1

בראשית רבה י״ט. ט

…….וקוננתי עליו איכה שנאמר ויאמר אל האדם איכה————-איכה כתיב

(לשון איכה כמו של חורבן הבית)

The medrash says that the posuk used a word like eicha of the churban by adam harishon because in both hashem sat and cried equally after expelling his loved ones

Answer 2

FOUND IT. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1:1:4:

אך בשמעם את קול ה׳ אלהים מתהלך בגן, התחבאו תחת עצי הגן, כי ידעו את עַוָתָתָם ולא נועזו להרים פניהם אליו. ויקרא ה׳ אלהים אל האדם וישאלהו על מה זה יתחמק ויחבא מפניו תחת אשר עד כה ראה פניו בששון ובשמחת לבב?

But when God came into the garden, Adam, who was wont before to come and converse with him, being conscious of his wicked behaviour, went out of the way. This behaviour surprised God; and he asked what was the cause of this; and why he, that before delighted in that conversation, did now fly from it, and avoid it?

Thanks all and sorry for the slight red herring - it didn't turn out to be a midrash but thankfully it wasn't just a dream or christian thing! BH Shabbat Shalom.

Answer 3

OP, you have identified your source as Josephus's passage where he says:

But when God came into the garden, Adam, who was wont before to come and converse with him, being conscious of his wicked behaviour, went out of the way. This behaviour surprised God; and he asked what was the cause of this his procedure; and why he, that before delighted in that conversation, did now fly from it, and avoid it?

and are looking for a rabbinic "source." But our rabbinic sources--especially aggadic midrashim--were redacted well after Josephus wrote his works at the end of the 1st century CE. At best, you might find rabbinic sources reflecting the same tradition or idea. But Josephus also often records stories and detail we do not have other sources for, perhaps because they reflect lost traditions or because they are non-canonical "street Torah."

However, many of these elements are found in at least some rabbinic sources. In Bereshit Rabbah 19:9, Hashem laments the fall of man. The text links the word "ayeka" (where are you) to "eikh heveit" (roughly, what has happened to you!) and to "eicha" (the first word of Lamentations, which has the same implication of sad shock: how [has it happened]). In elaborating, the midrash says God was commenting on both the fact that man has become disgraced and that man has become distant from Hashem. The key phrase I'm thinking of is: אֶתְמוֹל לְדַעְתִּי, וְעַכְשָׁיו לְדַעְתּוֹ שֶׁל נָחָשׁ - roughly, yesterday Adam was was in accord with me, today he is in accord with the Serpent.

The Etz Yosef explains:

אתמול לדעתי התבונן איך נפלת ממדרגתך. כי בתחלה לא היה בך כח הרע מאומה ונמשכת לדעתי ורצוני. והיום לדעתו וחפצו של נחש לכח הרע ואתמול הכוונה כמו קודם ותחלה: Translation: God is reflecting on how much you have fallen. At first, there was no evil in you and you sought to know me and do my will. Today, you do what the Serpent wants for evil...

Bereshit Rabbah 21:4 has a similar statement and the Etz Yosef makes a similar comment.

In Sanhedrin 38b we find: ואמר רב יהודה אמר רב אדם הראשון מין היה שנאמר ויקרא ה' אלהים אל האדם ויאמר לו איכה אן נטה לבך. Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav, Adam was a heretic. Because the verse says God called out to man and said "where are you" (ayeka), meaning where has your heart turned to.

As for the element of surprise that man has turned away and hidden, Sforno to 3:9 comments that "ayeka" is not a question of where man is but is asking (or observing) "that you do not appear in the garden as you used to, because now you are hiding and you did not do that before."

So, putting these sources together, we have most of the elements of your OP and the Josephus passage: God is surprised that man is hiding from him which is not what he used to do (Sforno); God is disappointed about the fall of man (Bereshit Rabbah); and God laments that that man used to want be be close to Him and/or listen to Him but has now gone in a different direction (Bereishit Rabbah & Sanhedrin). The only elements I'm not seeing are (a) anthropomorphizing that God misses Adam (which I don't see in the Josephus quote either) and (b) the specific idea that Adam used to "delight" in talking to God.

Answer 4

B"H

Based on the other answers which refer to each of those passages it seems the only question is the conversations G-d would have with Adam and how He misses them.

For that we can point to the other Midrashim and pesukim that refer to their conversations

The obvious conversation is when G-d told man not to eat from the tree etc etc.

I'm not sure if that conversation included any response from Adam, so it may be hard to call it a conversation.

The only conversation I can think of is the Midrash that refers to how after Adam finished giving names to all animal creations, G-d asked Adam "what is my name?" And Adam responded "to you, it is beautiful to call you Adonai, since you are the master (Adon) to all of your creations".

This is the only back and forth conversation I can think of, and it seems to be much more "joyous" than the initial conversation. Not sure where the chat bot got a reference to that from the Midrash (unless it just subconsciously combined the two), but I've found that many AIs are very inaccurate with sources, especially Jewish sources, so I wouldn't rely on it for anything. (Unless one considers it a new medium for prophecy)