Bereshit 5777 - English

By Rabbi Guido Cohen

Asociación Israelita Montefiore Bogotá, Colombia

The first Parashah of the year contains different stories, each one interesting in its own way and worthy of some thoughts.  Among those many stories, there is one that has fascinated me since I was very young due to its relevance and its moving messages.  I am referring to the story of Cain and Abel, the first murder in history, which from a ‘mythical’ point of view was also the largest genocide, for in it 25% of humanity was killed. 

One of the most complex verses in this episode is the one in which the Torah appears to insinuate a dialogue between Cain and Abel.  A dialogue that never took place.  According to the Hebrew version of the text (the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the King James and the Reina-Valera bibles all have amended versions compared to the original), Cain ‘told’ his brother Abel something, although the text does not tell us what.

Practically all exegetes are bothered by this, they are uncomfortable with Cain’s silence.  The Torah leaves a small door open for interpretative creativity in that verse that says, “And Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.”  The verb ‘vayomer’ must have some indication after it as to what was the content of what was said, unlike ‘vayedaber’ which means ‘spoke’ and does not require an explanation of the content.

The midrashim and other classic interpretations attempt to fill the void of this verse to try to explain what happened there.  What did Cain tell Abel?

The options are many.  There are those that seek to find a motive for the crime (Bereshit Rabbah), those who try to explain the theological ramifications (Targum Pseudo Jonatan), those that explain the methodology of the murderous act (Bereshit Rabbah), and there is even one that tries to ease Cain’s guilt by presenting Abel as someone who was about to kill his brother (Tanchuma Bereshit).  

The space for this commentary exceeds the possibility of showing all the rabbinical explanations for this verse.  I would like to offer, then, the one that I find most convincing, which comes from Rabbi Mordechai Edery Z’ZL, one of the lights from Latin American Judaism.  Rabbi Edery adds an ellipsis to his translation to fill the void in the verse.  And in his commentary he teaches us the following: “It would seem that by silencing these words, the Torah decides that murder can never be rationalized or justified.  The words that were mentioned are not important: when the tragedy is so big, its motives can never be relevant.”  

We know that Jewish wisdom learns from every letter in the Torah.  Like the famous Talmudic tale says, even from the crown that embellishes each letter, the sages will extract teachings.  But it is surprising to see that the sages give an interpretation even to the silences.  They not only create from each of the letters on the scroll of the Torah, but they also are so bold as to create from the letters that are missing.

From a technical point of view, everything points to there being a mistake.  Or that a part of the text went missing, or maybe a verb was used incorrectly.  Nevertheless, no matter what the reason for that absence is, for that silence, it is open to interpretation by the sages. 

At this time when we ‘rewind’ the Torah again (if you are so young that you do not know what that means, ask one of your elders about cassettes and VHS), it is healthy to remember that each of its letter, and even each of its spaces, has an enormous reserve of meaning awaiting discovery.  This is why year after year we open the same text once again and reread it.  Even when the text is the same, we are not, and therefore the possibilities of finding meanings within it continuously expand.  Every period, every letter, every silence in the biblical text opens up as an interpretative possibility that allows us the make the Torah a Torat Chaim, a Torah for life.