• • •

There are gaps in the text. From the purely human point of view, we cannot but be disturbed about . . . the parents.

After all, Adam and Eve were still alive and even quite well, considering the circumstances. What were they doing while their children were quarreling? Could they not have intervened? Used their parental authority? Remonstrated with the one and appeased the other? Could they not have reasoned with them, explained to them, calmly but firmly, what life, and particularly collective life, was all about? Granted that Cain was a problem child, why then did Adam—or Eve—not try to intercede on his behalf, attempt to improve his relations with God?

Well, actually, Adam could not be found. He had disappeared. Vanished. At the very moment when his presence was most needed. While Cain was in trouble with God and Abel was pitted against Cain, Adam was conspicuously absent. As though the education and problems of his sons were no concern of his. He was the busy father, overworked and self-involved, earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. Well, maybe. But then, where was Eve? Did she but try, just once, to act as buffer between Cain and God, between Cain and his brother? Where was she when her turbulent and precocious children needed a mother to arbitrate between them, to scold and love them? How are we to explain this first and probably most fatal pedagogical failure in history? Must we attribute it to the “gap” that separates all generations, those of long ago and today’s, and the resulting lack of communication and understanding between parents and their children?

No less serious are the theological questions. Why did God choose to commit the first act of discrimination between men? Why indeed did he favor Abel over his brother? Because, as we are told by the Midrash, his offerings were superior? Did the gifts’ value really matter to God? To God too? Or did He prefer Abel because he had the advantage of being weak—God loves the weak—and young, for even God likes to please the young?

Or was there another reason? Cain was in constant motion, troubling, disturbing, speaking incessantly, whereas his brother liked to meditate and listen. Was that a reason for God to side with one against the other? Or did God wish to make the point—even then—that injustice is inherent in the human condition; that two human beings—no matter who they are or who their grandparents were—are never equal, since their duties and privileges are never the same? That therefore men could be brothers and still could not claim equal rights? How is one to understand God’s arbitrary way of handling His creatures, playing one man against the other, turning them into irreconcilable enemies?

Cain, after all, was guilty of no wrongdoing; he had transgressed no interdiction. Not yet. Indeed, he had not done or said anything as yet. Even his thoughts about God seem almost irreproachable. Like his brother, and much before him, he tried to please Him, to pay Him homage. The offerings were his idea. Abel but imitated him. And what did Cain receive in exchange? A rejection. Why? Why this gratuitous, public humiliation? Worse: when God finally did speak to him, He scored him for being disappointed, using cruel, obscure language: Why are you so resentful and why has your countenance fallen? Surely, if you do right, it shall mean exaltation. But if you do wrong, sin is the demon at the door, urging you to follow. Still, you can be his master . . . Cain, in the absence of any explanation, expected at least some consolation; instead he was treated to a lecture on morality and a warning. Offended, unjustly rejected, encumbered with offerings nobody wanted, what was he to do? Hush his grief, contain his sorrow? Nobody ever taught him how. It was only normal for him to unburden himself, to justify retroactively the injustice perpetrated on him, by giving in to the violence rumbling inside him, by striking out and killing.