Parshat Bereishit

TWO CRIMES: Eating from the tree of knowledge and the murder of Hevel. The Torah clearly delineates the route to the first sin. The snake lured woman to the fruit telling her of its powers, and she partook of the fruit.

vateira haisha ki tov haetz lemaachal vechi taavah hu leenayim venechmad haetz lehaskil
she saw that the tree was good to eat, appealing to the eyes, and the tree was pleasing for knowledge.

Her motive was temptation. The beautiful sin had beckoned.

I.

What was Cain’s motive for the first of all murders? " MAN KILLS BROTHER BECAUSE GOD REJECTED OFFERING. " Such a headline has not appeared in the Metro-Section lately. Cain had failed in his offering of grain while God accepted his brother’s offering of choice sheep. The Torah describes Cain’s pain over his failure and God’s response with words of encouragement.

Vayomer Hashem el kayin lamah charah lach, velamah naphlu panecha. Halo im tetiv se-eit ve-im lo tetiv lapetach chatat rovetz…
God said to Cain why should you be angered, why should your face fall. Is it not true, that if you do good you will be accepted and if you do not do good sin waits at the door.

Is there a better ‘baal mussar’ than Hashem? Is there a better motivational speaker than God? Yet Cain, right after this ‘shmooz’ speaks to Hevel initiating his crime.

Vayomer kayin el hevel achiv, vayehi behiyotam basadeh vayakam kayin el hevel achiv vayahargehu
And kayin spoke to Hevel his brother, and it was when they were in the field, Cain arose upon his brother and he killed him.

Cain gained nothing by murdering Hevel. He was brought further from God, and Cain knew from God’s warning that such an outcome was inevitable.

lepetach chatat rovetz
He walked directly into sin, as it crouched at his door.

To use the immortal words of Lieutenant Columbo, “Sir, there is something I just don’t understand.”
If the spark for this story had been aspirations for coming close to God, TO BRING KORBANOT, how could Cain fall to murder as a consequence?

II.

To examine a motive, we must enter the mind of the criminal. Cain knew of his parents’ sin, and their failure to listen to God. He knew of exile, and his occupation directly resulted from God’s curse upon his father.

Beitzavon tochalena kol yeme chayecha.
Cain found food through pain; he was a farmer.

Bezeat apecha tochal lechem.
Cain ate bread with the sweat of his brow.

He directly felt the consequences of God’s curse on man.

Cain took a risk by initiating service of God. He approached God with the very material with which he had been cursed and thanked God for the blessing laden therein. He made an offering of grain. Cain repented for all humanity, seeking to repair the faults of his father, to fix man’s relationship with his Creator.

Yet, for all his idealistic intentions, Cain met failure. He and his offering were rejected, while his brother was accepted by God for his offering. Hevel-the brother- who did not work the land, who did not overcome the curse of Adam’s sin.

Vayechar lekayin meod
Cain was very angered.

God should have accepted his offering. His attempt at reconciliation through the land had failed, while his brother’s cop-out service through the curse-free flocks of sheep had succeeded.

Vayiplu panav
Cain’s head drooped.

Depression. Cain’s life effort met failure. The land would always be cursed. God would not accept an offering originating in the land.

God responds to Cain in his moment of despair.

Halo im tetiv se-eit ve-im lo tetiv lapetach chatat rovetz…

God sets the boundaries for man’s spiritual quest. If man does good, God will forgive his sin. If man does not do good, sin crouches ready to fall upon him. God does not stop with this basic formula, He grants Cain with an understanding of sin’s nature and man’s ability to conquer it.

Ve’elecha teshukato veatah temshal bo
Sin clings itself to man, but man has power over it.

The language used to describe sins attachment to man, vealecha teshukato veatah temshal bo, is the exact language used to describe woman’s attachment to man after eating from the tree of knowledge, veel ishech teshukatech vehu yemshal bach. Woman would still desire to live with man, even though she has tremendous birth pangs as a direct consequence. Sin would live in man no matter what man’s success. Man would continuously face the challenge of sin, the state of purity enjoyed in gan eden could not be achieved again. Cain’s dreams of a return to gan eden of rectifying his father’s sins could never be achieved.

Cain should have learned of his limitations; he should have raised his head to a new reality. Cain, however, sunk deeper into his own failure. He responded to rejection with self-destruction. For Cain, life would be the ideal reality or nothing. To twist the phrase of Patrick Henry: Give me gan eden or give me death. Cain had become deranged and defiant. He destroyed those who would live in an imperfect world battling sin forever. If the woman ate from the tree out of desire for the good life, Cain killed Hevel out of the lack of desire for the good life. His motive was self-destruction, defying God’s warning in open rebellion.

III.

Bereishis leaves us with two models for sin. Some sins emerge from delusion, both internal and external. We sin because we believe we will be better off as a result of the sin. We will feel good; we will enjoy life more. This sin can be avoided only by knowing the difference between good and evil and choosing good.

Other sins come from our rejection of life itself, its value, and our place within it. We reject God not through subtlety but through open rebellion. We will not accept our position in his world. Cain’s response originates in a desire to do good, to reach an ideal. Failure to achieve that ideal prompts rejection of our place in the world and a failure to achieve anything.

IV.

Listening to a dear friend, I hear the constant frustration in his voice. He can’t believe what Olmeret did; what Rice said; what Hamas will do. He sulks about in a constant state of dejection because of Israel’s willingness to transfer Eretz Yisrael—to our enemies. The daati leumi—the religious Jew who integrates the Jewish state into his belief system—faces theological rejection and confusion. God has said "No."

Do we respond to the fact that the majority of Israel’s population really cares more about American culture than Judea and Samaria by turning our back on the state? Does the fact that reishit tzmichat geulatenu—the first sprouting of our redemption—has become less robust and more difficult cause us to cast away the geula in total? We can not fall into the trap of Cain. im tetiv seet—our job is not to make demands and set expectations for how Hashem directs history. Our job is to do good. To do mitzvot. To strengthen our connection to am yisrael, torat yisrael, and eretz yisrael.

Look at the Tanach, and learn how the Jewish people are to understand reversals in our dominion over Eretz Yisrael. Yermeya asks al meh avdah haretz ‘For what reason was the land lost’ (9:11) and Hashem responds al azvam et torati ‘because they have forsaken my Torah.’ We must not lose faith in Hashem and the ways he works our redemption. Rather, we must look at ourselves and our actions and wonder what have we done wrong and where can we return. We can not, like Cain, allow our dreams to deter us from our goals of coming close to Hashem however He will allow us. Hashivenu hashem elecha venashuva. Only when Hashem brings us close, can we return.