Making sense of the Sedra: Bereishit

The Biblical story of Cain and Abel recounts the first murder in human history, which we read about in this week’s parsha, Bereishit. Cain, a farmer, is the first son of the first couple, Adam and Eve. Abel, a shepherd, is their second. Each brother offers a sacrifice to God, but Cain is angered when only Abel’s is accepted. God offers Cain a second chance to submit a worthy sacrifice and warns him against yielding to resentful anger, but Cain does not respond. He subsequently converses with Abel and then murders him.

“Cain then had words with his brother Abel, and it happened that when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him” (Bereishit 4:8).

Why did Cain kill Abel? What was the nature of the conversation between them that led to the murder?

The rabbis in the Midrash (early rabbinic teachings), reading between the lines of the Biblical text and with an eye to extracting a message from those lines, offer three different scenarios (Bereishit Rabba 22:7). The first (which pre-empted Karl Marx) argues that the conflict was over wealth distribution. Cain and Abel said to each other: “We are the only two children of Adam and Eve, let us divide the earth between ourselves.” Cain said: “I will take the land and you will take the moveable property.” They agreed. But then Cain said to Abel: “The ground you are standing on is mine, get off my property, you must fly”. Abel responded: “The clothes you are wearing are mine, you will have to walk around naked.” The argument continued until Cain murdered Abel.

The second suggests that the argument was over God and religion. One said: “God’s Temple will be built on my territory.” The other said: “No, the Holy Temple will be built on my land!” So Cain rose up and killed Abel. According to this opinion, the first murder in history was due to a ‘holy war’ – violence inspired by religion.

Finally, the third scenario (this time pre-empting Sigmund Freud). Rabbi Huna proposed that the argument was over marriage. Cain was born with a twin sister, whom he subsequently married (at the time, there was no-one else!), and Abel was born with two twin sisters (Rashi on Bereishit 4:2). The brothers were fighting over the additional girl. Cain said, “I am the oldest, she is for me”. Abel said: “She was born with me; she is supposed to be my wife”. So Cain killed Abel to seize this girl. According to this opinion, the first murder in history had marital relationships as its cause.

The Torah is teaching us archetypes of the quarrels that would define human life throughout the millennia until this very day. Ultimately, if we are not careful, our egos will cause us to fall victim to one of these three conflicts. As I heard recently, in a creative sense, the word ‘ego’ can be read as an acronym for ‘Easing God Out’.

Please God, as we enter the new cycle of Torah reading, from which we can learn new ideas every year, we will connect with God’s infinite wisdom contained within it and avoid repeating the mistakes of history. As we learn in Pirkei Avot: “Turn the Torah over and over, for everything is in it” (5:26).