Parashat Breishit, Genesis 1:1-6:8

Our ancestors knew, as we know, that we can't go back to Eden.

"Go West, young man." That was the cry in nineteenth century America; or at least that's what we're told. This motto, attributed to the newspaper editor Horace Greeley, expresses the freedom and possibilities that existed in the American expansion to the west. As it turns out, this saying may be a paraphrase of what Greeley actually said, although it conveys the meaning of the message. Many of us remember nameless westerns that revolve around the story of a young man heading out into the "wild west" to seek his fortune. The west was where all the good things in life would unfold. It held all of life's potential. It was, if you will, akin to the Garden of Eden.

Except that in the Torah Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden is not in the west but in the east: The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. (Genesis 2:8) After eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, humanity is banished from the garden and sentries are placed east of the garden of Eden … to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)

We're never told where the parents of humanity finally settled to eke out a living by the sweat of their brow. We do know that Eden becomes even more unreachable in the next generation. Cain, after killing his brother Abel, is sentenced to be a ceaseless wanderer on the earth (Genesis 4:12). While his heart may have pleaded "Go West, young man," Cain is even farther from Eden than his parents. Exiled from ever working the land again because of the blood he spilled on it, banished to be a nomad, he ironically ends up settling in the land of Nod (wandering), east of Eden. (Genesis 4:16) To say that Cain settled there is an understatement: And he then founded a city, and named the city after his son Enoch. (Genesis 4:17)

Much has been written about this little endeavour, founding the first city. It has been taken as a critique of urban life, since Cain the "inventor" of city life, is deemed to be evil. In next week's parashah, the story of the Tower of Babel will further perpetuate this view of urban life. Add to this God’s recurring choice of wanderers and shepherds as biblical leaders, and Cain apparently made a poor career move by going into urban planning.

To the ancient way of thinking, nothing seemed more natural than to represent a murderer and outlaw as the first builder of cities. The ancients did not think of a city as arising out of the exigencies of barter and trade. The complexity, the turmoil, and the degeneration that marked human life in the larger centers of population were to them proof that the city had sinister origins. Towns and cities were to them abnormal and the product of unnatural circumstances. The fact that nearly every town harbored refugees from justice or vengeance gave color to the belief that the corrupt character of town populations was due to the degenerate character of the founders.

Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, from an unpublished manuscript as quoted in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition, Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut (ed.) p. 49

Looking at it from a different perspective, however, urban centers may also be safe havens that even come with a hekhsher (kosher seal of approval): Then Moses set aside three cities on the east side of the Jordan to which a manslayer could escape, one who unwittingly slew a fellow man without having been hostile to him in the past; he could flee to one of these cities and live…(Deuteronomy 4:41-2)

Notice that these three cities of refuge are in the east. It seems that in establishing the first urban center, Cain may have set up the first city of refuge. This makes sense. His action in killing his brother was not premeditated murder. Nobody had ever died before; how was he to know that this would be the result of his action? He committed manslaughter, but he also repented, an act so powerful that he received God's protection. Midrash Genesis Rabbah teaches that after all this tragic event Cain met his father Adam who asked him about the punishment he received for his sin:

"I repented and am reconciled," replied he. Thereupon Adam began beating his face, crying, "So great is the power of repentance, and I did not know!"

Midrash Genesis Rabbah 22:13, Soncino translation

In setting up this first city, Cain also unleashed a series of events: His descendants developed music and metallurgy, or to put it more broadly, culture and technology. For Cain, heading east brought a new life, a purposeful life, a life that created relationships instead of destroying them.

What about us? What role does the east play in our lives? East, mizrach, has always held great meaning for Jews. Those of us in the west face east to pray. Many have lovely mizrach plaques in their homes as constant reminder of this direction. East is a spiritual connection for Jews, though not for all of us. While many of us deeply feel Yehuda Ha-Levi's  longing: "My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west" more and more of us agree with the often quoted Rudyard Kipling verse: "East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet."

Both poets were speaking geographically and metaphorically. Let's look at their words in a spiritual context. Today, the west is presented as the height of material success and personal fulfillment. Were we to say, "Go West, young man," we would be encouraging individual striving towards a self-centered goal. But there is more to life, and for that we must turn east, in the same way that our earliest biblical ancestors set off for the east.

They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault.
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt: ...
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;

Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West

If only Cain had read through all of Kipling's The Ballad of East and West, bloodshed could have been averted! Still, Cain faced God's judgment seat, admitted his sin, accepted responsibility and repented, and was sent off to the east. There he found spiritual healing, enabling him to enter a relationship with God and with other people, which inevitably led to his personal fulfillment and rehabilitation.

Our ancestors knew, as we know, that we can't go back to Gan Eden. But we can choose the direction of our lives. So which way is it going to be: The lure of the west, the nudge to the east? As we learn in the psalm (113:3): From east to west the name of Adonai is praised.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel