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Back to Question of the Week Q: Dear Reb on the Web: My wife and I was discussing the other day, the story about Kayin and Hevel, Bereshit 4:3-5. Neither of us can understand WHY God rejected Kayin's offering. He was a farmer, he gave what he had, as did Hevel, who was a shepherd. It seems unfair, almost as if God is setting Kayin up to fall victim to his own anger. Please explain this passage. Sincerely Bear |
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A: Dear Bear: It's actually a very great compliment in Jewish study to be told that your question has already been asked by previous generations- it means that you're noticing things that the great Torah commentators also noticed. So let me compliment you by saying that some very great Torah commentators have explicitly asked this very question. For example, the 16th century scholar Moshe Alschich forms a question very similar to yours: Seeing that Kayin and Hevel brought gifts representative of their vocations, why did God discriminate against Kayin? What is the meaning of the words gam hu [he also] in the verse reporting Hevel's offering? [I.e., these words seem to be unnecessary.] Why does the Torah not simply say "to Hevel and his offering," instead of "to Hevel and to his offering?" [Again, what's up with the apparently extra word?] Before we discuss possible approaches to this question, let's look at the relevant passage: The man knew his wife Eve. She conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, 'I have gained a man with God.' She gave birth again, this time to his brother Abel. Abel became a shepherd, while Cain was a worker of the soil. An era ended. Cain brought fruit of the ground as an offering to God. Abel, he also offered some of the firstborn of his flock, from the fattest ones. God paid heed to Abel and to his offering, but to Cain and his offering, God paid no heed. Cain became very furious and depressed. (Genesis 4:5-1, slightly modified Aryeh Kaplan translation.) The standard traditional explanation for God's apparent rejection of Kayin's sacrifice picks up on the difference between the descriptions of Kayin's and Hevel's offerings. Note that Hevel offered from the "first-born" and the "fattest" of his flock- Rashi and others take this to imply that Kayin brought only leftover offerings of inferior quality. Alshich, answering his own questions, further speculates that the extra "he also" in the verse describing Hevel's offering means that Hevel put more of himself, as it were, into the offering, whereas Kayin just did it after Hevel did, in a perfunctory manner. The commentators note also that Kayin offered plain ol' "fruit of the ground," whereas Hevel offered from his flocks, again seeing a hint that Hevel's offering was more reverent and personal. (The rabbis also assume that Kayin went second, and Hevel initiated the act of offering, from the verb forms in the two verses. It's a grammar thing.) I do agree with the commentators that there is textual evidence that Hevel was the more religiously aware and reverent of the two brothers, but maybe there is more to the story than a lesson in God's sacrificial preferences. Maybe the point of the story is not in the logic of God's apparent rejection of Kayin's offering, but precisely in its apparent unpredictability. Life will inevitably result in moments when a human being feels rejected, feels worthless, feels abandoned, feels like the "universe is conspiring against me." It seems to me that the story of Kayin and Hevel is a story about the very basic human tendency to take our inner feelings, especially the negative ones like loneliness and rejection, and project them outward onto others, often with violence and hostility. There are three actors in the drama of Kayin and Hevel: the two brothers, and God. When Kayin's offering was not accepted, he seems to blame everybody but himself, and projects his rage and disappointment onto his brother. That's a very common human reaction, and it seems to me that this story is warning us about the capacity of human beings- especially men, I think- to resort to violence rather than introspection when faced with an emotional crisis. One might consider that the rest of the book of Genesis deals with this basic question: how can I live with my brother [or sister, or fellow human being] when life just isn't fair sometimes? That question remains very much on our minds. NJL |
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