Bluemoon_Rising
08-28-2005, 10:48 AM
Jewish World Review
The World’s First Murder: A Closer Look at Cain and Abel — There’s No Place Like Home
By Rabbi David Fohrman
Weekend August 28, 2005
This particular set of consequences appear first in the wake of the Tree of Knowledge, and then again, in the aftermath of Abel's murder. We asked last week whether there was a common, unifying theme in these consequences. I'd like to return to that question now.
We can begin by doing a little consolidating. As we noted earlier, the Torah seems to treat exile and difficulty farming as dual expressions of a larger idea -- the advent of a certain distance between man and land:
…And now, cursed are you from the land that opened its maw to take your brothers blood from your hands. When you work the land, it will no longer give its strength to you; a wanderer shall you be in the land… (Genesis 4:11-12).
We can think of these words as forming a kind of triangle. The fact that Cain is cursed from the earth - distanced from the land - is the top of the triangle, the "topic-sentence", as it were. The two points at the base of the triangle then clarify what this "distance from the land" means in real life: It means that you will experience difficulty farming and exile. These two things express a kind of alienation Cain will feel with respect to the land.
Cursed from the Land
Difficulty Farming Exile from the Land
We can now go back and simplify our query. Having seen the unifying theme in "difficulty farming" and "exile", we are now looking for common denominators between two elements, rather than three. We now want to know: What does "distance from the earth" and "hiding from G-d" have in common. (1) Well, the ideas of "hiding" and "distance" are certainly similar. When one hides from someone else, one is avoiding contact with them, creating distance. Let's now ask: What, if anything, do "earth" and "G-d" have in common?
The rest: http://jewishworldreview.com/david/fohrman_cain_abel14.php3
The World’s First Murder: A Closer Look at Cain and Abel — There’s No Place Like Home
By Rabbi David Fohrman
Weekend August 28, 2005
This particular set of consequences appear first in the wake of the Tree of Knowledge, and then again, in the aftermath of Abel's murder. We asked last week whether there was a common, unifying theme in these consequences. I'd like to return to that question now.
We can begin by doing a little consolidating. As we noted earlier, the Torah seems to treat exile and difficulty farming as dual expressions of a larger idea -- the advent of a certain distance between man and land:
…And now, cursed are you from the land that opened its maw to take your brothers blood from your hands. When you work the land, it will no longer give its strength to you; a wanderer shall you be in the land… (Genesis 4:11-12).
We can think of these words as forming a kind of triangle. The fact that Cain is cursed from the earth - distanced from the land - is the top of the triangle, the "topic-sentence", as it were. The two points at the base of the triangle then clarify what this "distance from the land" means in real life: It means that you will experience difficulty farming and exile. These two things express a kind of alienation Cain will feel with respect to the land.
Cursed from the Land
Difficulty Farming Exile from the Land
We can now go back and simplify our query. Having seen the unifying theme in "difficulty farming" and "exile", we are now looking for common denominators between two elements, rather than three. We now want to know: What does "distance from the earth" and "hiding from G-d" have in common. (1) Well, the ideas of "hiding" and "distance" are certainly similar. When one hides from someone else, one is avoiding contact with them, creating distance. Let's now ask: What, if anything, do "earth" and "G-d" have in common?
The rest: http://jewishworldreview.com/david/fohrman_cain_abel14.php3