2019/5780

Why did Kayin kill Hevel? Although many of us, going back to our childhood, have learned the basic storyline of the two brothers’ disagreement, the actual verses are surprisingly murky concerning the sequence of events immediately preceding the world’s first murder.

What is clear is that Kayin became upset and depressed when God seemed more pleased with Hevel’s offering of animals than with Kayin’s offering of his produce. However, after God rebukes Kayin and implores him to improve, the Torah verses become less clear: “VaYomer Kayin El Hevel Achiv VaYehi Bihyotam BaSadeh VaYakam Kayin El Hevel Achiv VaYahargeihu,” “And Kayin said to Hevel his brother. And it was, while they were in the field, Kayin rose up against Hevel his brother and murdered him.” (Breishis 4:8). In this critical verse describing the murder, a key detail is left missing – what precisely did Kayin say before the brothers found themselves in the field?

Ramban, for one, diminishes the significance of this question. He says that all that Kayin did was to request that Hevel go out to the field (to his eventual murder), as is described by the end of the verse. According to Ramban, there is no conversation of significance alluded to by these words. Rather, they are only intended to convey to the reader that Kayin lured Hevel into the field before murdering him. However, since the verse merely mentions that they were in the field, and does not mention Kayin’s coax to go out to the field, most other commentators as well as many Midrashim interpret the verse differently. They assume that the Torah here is alluding to a more substantive conversation that took place at this moment between Kayin and Hevel, one which led directly to the latter’s murder. Some (including Rav Yoseif Kara) say that Kayin recounted to Hevel his conversation with God, in which God told Kayin that he needed to improve. Why would he do this? Mahari Kara suggests that Kayin wanted Hevel to let his guard down, expecting that Kayin would change and improve himself in light of God’s rebuke, and hence allow Kayin to execute the murder more seamlessly.

Other commentators, such as Rav Ovadia Seforno, suggest that Kayin told Hevel just how angry and upset he was about the whole sequence of events and God’s unfair treatment of him, explaining the anger underlying his decision to kill Hevel. The Torah translation attributed to Yonatan Ben Uziel takes this a step further, describing a lengthy conversation that took place between Kayin and Hevel in which Kayin began to vehemently deny any concept of Divine justice in this world, upset that God had not viewed his offering favorably.

Many other Midrashim cite alternative versions of this mysterious conversation in other ways, and a number of these are cited in BeReishit Rabbah. Some say the Torah here alludes to a conversation in which the brothers fought over the division of the world’s inheritance, with each of the brothers slyly negotiating for items that the other would eventually need and could not survive without. Others say they were fighting over a woman - be it their mother Chavah or an extra twin sister that had been born with Hevel. According to this latter interpretation, Kayin attempted to invoke his rights as the firstborn to claim this extra wife, whereas Hevel felt that he deserved her more, as they were born together with each other. Other Midrashim understand the brothers’ dispute over the future inheritance of the world in yet other manners. According to all these views, it would seem (at least at first glance) that these issues - a desire for love, extra inheritance, or to make a statement about Divine judgement - formed the crux of Kayin’s motive to kill his brother.

However, each of these explanations fails to fully explain just why the Torah would leave the details of such a critical conversation vague. If these conversations were so important to the plot line, to allow us to truly understand Kayin’s motive in this story, why would the Torah not write them? If Kayin was really interested in inheritance, or in questioning the Divine Justice system, why would the Torah not write as much to help us understand the thought process underlying the world’s first murder?

Although all the conversations described by each of these Midrashim could certainly be true, the Torah omits these conversations because they were not ultimately what led to Kayin’s decision to murder. What did then? It was Kayin letting his anger and jealousy run unchecked. When a person develops a significant grudge, and when a person allows his anger to run unbridled and take control of himself, and ends up fighting with his companion as a result, very often the cause of the fight is not the petty issue that happens to spark the later disagreement, so much so as the underlying grudge and anger just looking for fuel to burn. Kayin fell into this trap to the ultimate degree. Kayin reached the point where his anger and jealousy completely blinded him to the enormity of his ensuing actions. There could be no justification, excuse, or significant enough of a motive for the murder, no matter the conversation that led to it - and the Torah did not want us to think otherwise for even a second. Kayin’s letting his anger run unchecked is highlighted by Malbim’s novel interpretation of our verse. He argues that “VaYomer Kayin El Hevel Achiv” (ibid.) is a phrase describing not speech; but rather thought - namely, Kayin interpreted G-d’s message (of an impending threat to Kayin, which had been referring to Kayin’s anger and Yeitzer Hara) as referring to Hevel, his brother. Kayin’s anger and jealousy so blinded him that he completely misinterpreted God’s call for him to catch himself and change his attitude before it was too late, reinterpreting it in a way that served to actually reinforce his jealous status quo instead. All too often in life, we see people who let small annoyances and sources of anger control their lives and relationships in ways that even they could never have wished for from the start. The story of Kayin is a stark reminder to us of the importance of sometimes taking a step back, before letting ourselves run unchecked. It’s important to listen closely to those around us, and to put things into perspective before taking actions that we may regret later on, even one's not nearly as drastic as those of Kayin. And by doing so, we can ensure that the world's first death taught us a lesson to live by.