Tag Archives: Primordial Serpent

Cain and Abel: A New Understanding

This week we restart the Torah reading cycle with Beresheet. One of the most complex, mysterious, and intriguing passages in the parasha is the story of Cain and Abel. The entire account gets only 17 verses total. First, Cain has a bright idea to bring Hashem an offering—the first time we hear of such a concept explicitly in the Torah. Abel then copies his brother, and gets rewarded for it, while Hashem seemingly ignores Cain’s offering. This upsets Cain and he is “greatly distressed” (Genesis 4:5). Hashem asks Cain why he is so upset. “Surely, if you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right, sin couches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (v. 7)

The next thing we are told is that Cain is speaking to Abel, and suddenly “rises up” to kill him. God questions Cain, points out the blood of Abel calling out, and then curses Cain to be a wanderer upon the Earth. Cain’s response is that “my sin is too great to bear!” (v. 13) Cain worries that once he becomes a defenceless wanderer, anyone who finds him will kill him. God promises to give Cain a protective mark. Cain then goes to live in the land of Nod, gets married, has a son called Hanokh (“Enoch”, not to be confused with the other, more famous Enoch who never died), and builds a city that he names after his son (v. 17). That’s the whole narrative, and it brings up numerous big questions:

  1. Why and how did Cain kill Abel?
  2. When God asks Cain “where is your brother?”, Cain answers that he doesn’t know. How could Cain blatantly lie to God? Is he not aware of the basic fact that God is omniscient? Did he learn nothing from his parents (Adam and Eve) who tried to hide from God?
  3. On that note, Cain is clearly on a high prophetic level, able to communicate openly and directly with God. He seemingly invents the concept of offerings to Hashem, and later admits that his “sin is too great to bear”. This does not sound like an evil person. On the contrary, it sounds like someone who deeply wishes to serve God, and who is remorseful and repentant. Which is it? Who was Cain really?
  4. Cain worries that if he becomes a wanderer, “hidden from God’s face” (4:14) and without God’s protection, anyone who finds him will kill him. If there are no other humans besides Cain, Adam, and Eve at this point, who is he worried about? And who, exactly, did he end up marrying?
  5. Finally, despite being cursed to wander, we are told that Cain did not actually become a wanderer at all and, on the contrary, build the first human city! Why was his curse not realized? And why did he build a city? Why is a whole city necessary for a single family? And why did he specifically name his city Hanokh?

To answer the first question, the commentaries provide several answers. Continue reading →

God of Gods, King of Kings

‘The Midianites Put to Flight’ by Gustav Doré

One of the difficult passages in this week’s double parasha, Matot-Massei, which closes the Book of Numbers, is where God seemingly commands a complete massacre of a neighbouring people, the Midianites. This is actually God’s final command to Moses, saying “Take revenge for the Israelites against the Midianites. Afterwards, you will be gathered to your people.” (Numbers 31:2) The next and final book of the Torah is Moses’ own account of his leadership, and was relayed over the last 37 days of his life.

The Israelites go on to slaughter every male Midianite (31:7), take the women and children captive (31:9), then burn down all the cities and take plunder (31:10-11). Still, the Israelites are chastised for letting the adult women live (31:15), as they were the very ones that tempted Israel into various sexual sins beforehand. Understandably, this is one of the most troubling passages in the whole Torah—how could a holy nation seem to behave in a manner more like the violent and bloodthirsty nations we condemn? Unfortunately, passages like this have also turned many away from the Torah, and generated numerous atheists. One such atheist is Richard Dawkins, who summarized it this way in his book, The God Delusion (ch. 2): Continue reading →

Understanding Hair Covering for Women in Jewish Law

“Death of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram” by Gustave Doré

This week’s parasha, Korach, has a hidden theme: hair. In fact, the name of the villain himself, Korach (קרח), is spelled exactly the same way as kere’ach, “bald”. As we shall see below, Korach’s rebellion began when he saw himself bald-headed following his initiation ritual as a Levite. Hair comes up again in the famous story of one of Korach’s co-conspirators, a man named On ben Pelet. On is strangely mentioned right at the beginning of the parasha (Numbers 16:1), and never again. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 109b-110a) explains that he was saved thanks to his wife: She told her husband that he had nothing to gain from joining the rebellion; now he was subservient to Moses, and if the rebellion would be successful he would just become subservient to Korach!

On understood, but worried that he had already agreed to join the group. So, his clever wife got him drunk and sleepy, and On passed out in bed. Meanwhile, she went out to the entrance of their tent and “exposed her hair”. When Korach’s collaborators approached, the Talmud says they turned away due to the immodest sight of the woman. By the time On recovered from his drunken stupor, the whole episode was over, and he was spared. This story implies that Jewish women cover their hair, and for a woman to expose her hair publicly is immodest. Yet, nowhere in the Torah is there an explicit command for a Jew to cover their hair at all times (male or female). Hair-covering is not listed among the 613 mitzvot! If it isn’t a Torah mitzvah, where did it come from? Continue reading →