That is the impression emanating from the text. Repudiated by God, Cain sank into a black depression. Whereupon God, with a cruelty as startling as it was unprovoked, asked why he looked so crestfallen, why he was so depressed. As though He did not know, as though He was not the cause!

Judging by the tone and rhythm of the verbal exchange, it would appear that God was doing His utmost to multiply the pressures on Cain and push him to the limits of his endurance. By rejecting him, by ridiculing him, by denying his acts all spiritual meaning, God seems to have tried to create a kind of maladjustment: Cain would no longer know the difference between what was just and what was not. He witnessed the sudden collapse of his universe. He no longer knew what to do with a life that now seemed shallow and useless. How could he fill its void and give it meaning? He set out to find a deed that would not be lost, but would be inscribed in time, in a memory other than his own. He was the outsider, who kills to feel alive, to penetrate reality, to accelerate the cause of events, to arrive more quickly at the inevitable and inevitably tragic end. Conditioned for this kind of spectacular, definitive gesture, Cain could not help but kill: he did not choose the crime; instead, the crime chose him.

• • •

Here we face a totally different question: If Cain was truly conditioned to commit murder, why do we not look upon him as a victim of God, just as we consider Abel a victim of man?

Abel is an obvious victim; indeed, he is victim personified. That was his function from the beginning; his very name signifies futility, vanity. Every victim throughout the ages was and is meant to recognize himself in him. Like him, these victims seem to exist for the sole purpose of enduring, suffering and eventually disappearing. They exist to allow the murderer to satisfy his craving for bloodshed. And that is precisely what troubles us in Abel’s story. We cannot understand why, and by what right, God gave him life. Why did he bring him into the world? To be used by the murderer? What sin had he committed to deserve such punishment? A Midrash tells us: Ein mita belo khet—There is no death without sin. And what about Abel? A sinner, a criminal, he? No, he was but a poor dreamer, innocent and pure. One of the Just Men, he is counted among the fathers of mankind. One legend claims that he lived only fifty days—surely somewhat too short a time to have transgressed the most important commandments of the Torah.

Inevitably we must ask: Assuming that God did need a villain, why did He want Abel to be His victim? What criteria did He apply when casting the roles? Why did Abel deserve to die so young, without having had a chance to make something of his life?