A harrowing Midrash clearly attests to this. Listen to God speaking to Cain: Kol dmei akhikha tzoakim elai min haadamah, al tikra elai ki-im alai—The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the depths of the earth. This should not be read as to Me but as at Me, against Me. What you have done, Cain, you have done also in My name; you have shared with Me your projects and daydreams; you have made Me responsible for your acts as I make you responsible for My creation.

And so if the first death in history enters our collective memory as a murder, it means that death itself is an injustice. Perhaps Cain killed in protest against death.

• • •

And here we see our hero in a new light: that of rebel. Thus rehabilitated, Cain would be the first idealist or nihilist revolutionary; having rebelled not against his parents but against God. Against God on behalf of his parents.

An appealing idea. I would like to believe that Cain acted out of love. To avenge his passionately beloved parents’ honor, to protest their misery. He no doubt considered that God had punished them unjustly; he could see it well whenever he watched his old father and his weeping mother crushed by nostalgia. It affected him; in fact, it made him so indignant that, says the Midrash, he shouted: Let din velet dayan—There is neither judge nor justice in this world.

I would like to think that Cain did not rise up against his brother but against God, whose ways he found incomprehensible, intolerable. That he killed his brother to erase man’s resignation and passivity. That he could not go on living as though nothing had changed and refused to resemble Abel, who chose to ignore the outrage endured by their parents. I would like to think that Cain killed to push immanent injustice to its ultimate absurd conclusion, as if to shout to God: Is that what You wanted? Well, I shall go to the end! You don’t like Your own creation? All right, I’ll help You destroy it. Says the Midrash: Cain wished to restore the world to its original state of chaos.

And suddenly we understand Cain. A Cain tragically aware of his shortcomings, profoundly human and vulnerable. Having discovered evil and fatality in creation and in himself, having seen that man wanders down a road strewn with obstacles and traps, confronted with the inadequacy of his means and the extent of his solitude, Cain in his desperation decided to end it all immediately: better bring to an end this miserable human adventure before it begot new injustices of infinitely more frightening proportions.

Cain killed his brother—one half of mankind—out of disillusionment and perhaps out of love, weeping over all men and himself. His purpose? To destroy, to uproot creation. His reasoning? If this is man, I refuse to share his fate; if this is life, then I don’t want it. Cain killed Abel, and it was only a first step. He will follow him into death. Every murder is a suicide: Cain killed Cain in Abel.