By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin in Pikesville, Maryland
There is an interpretation of the Garden of Eden episode in Genesis three that I like. God placed the first human in a paradise where they would live with a gift of intelligence, eating fruits and vegetables, not needing to work, and never harming any living being.
However, the humans failed to use the divine gifts properly, and God removed them from the paradise and required them to use their intelligence to learn and work to improve themselves and the world. I will present the view of a rational-thinking rabbi on the Cain and Abel episode, including the idea that, at first, early humans did not murder living beings, and then continue with my interpretations of what happened next.
It is typical of the Bible to tell its commands and stories ambiguously. It does so because when the Bible was given to the Israelites, the recipients were not sophisticated and accepted many foolish notions of the pagans living among them.
Exodus 13:17-18 states: “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, ‘Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.’ But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea.”
Maimonides states in his Guide for the Perplexed 3:32 that God focused on the slow psychological and spiritual growth of the Israelites, noting their lack of experience in warfare and deep-seated fear of the Egyptians. The direct path meant confronting the well-armed Philistines, which would trigger panic in the former slaves and a desire to return to the perceived safety of slavery in Egypt. God knew the Israelites weren’t ready for war and would prefer returning to slavery over fighting.
Because of the unsophisticated mindset of the former slaves and their acceptance of the unwise pagans who lived among them, the Bible was forced to state most of its rulings and stories in ambiguous language that they could accept and not dismiss the Bible as nonsense. But it included multiple hints that what it seemed to accept was not the desired behavior.
It included numerous hints, such as restricting certain sacrifices, and requiring when, how, and where the sacrifices may be brought and how and where they were eaten. Wise rabbis understood this. In 70 CE, when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, they stopped sacrifices.
Dr. Marc B. Shapiro, a highly respected rabbi and scholar, described Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn’s interpretation of the Cain and Abel offerings to God in his article “Assorted Comments,” published in Seforim Blog. Rabbi Hirschensohn lived from 1857 to 1935 and was the Chief Rabbi of Hoboken, New Jersey, from 1904 until he died in 1935.
Rabbi Hirschensohn supposed that Cain brought his vegetables to the top of a mountain closer to heaven, where he would commune with God, and left the gift there. Because of his “meager religious and philosophical knowledge,” Cain probably thought God would take his gift after he left. Later, when Cain returned to the site, he saw the vegetables where he had left them and concluded that God had rejected his sacrifice. Actually, God was not involved. The notion that the Lord had no respect for his offering was only in Cain’s mind.
Rabbi Hirschensohn imagines that Abel did not leave his animal offering on the mountain; instead, he allowed his gift to wander freely, expecting God to find and accept it. He did not kill the animal, thinking that God would not want a dead beast. What would God do with a dead animal? Since Abel sent the animal away and did not find it, he and Cain assumed that God had accepted Abel’s offering.
It is possible to think that the early humans retained this view for some time but later abandoned it. They began to develop the idea that they needed to show their love of God by offering God what they loved best.
These gifts included animals of all kinds as well as firstborn children.
Genesis 22 can be understood as Abraham’s struggle with whether it made sense to offer his beloved son, Isaac, as a passionate gift to God. As Maimonides explains in his Guide for the Perplexed 3:20, God’s perfect knowledge means God doesn’t need to test people. When the Bible seems to say, as in the case of Abraham and Job, that God tested them, it means the people went through a difficult personal time that tested their thinking. The difficulty helped them understand God and grow morally and intellectually.
In Abraham’s case, he understood that offering Isaac as a sacrifice to God was ridiculous. By the time of Noah, ten generations after Abraham, most people believed that they needed to show God they loved God by murdering living beings that they loved.
This displeased God and caused him to flood the earth to kill all people who had this notion. This would explain why God did not kill fish because fish did not kill living beings as divine gifts.
The flood story may be a parable rather than an actual event, and the event may have occurred in a small area rather than the entire earth. The parable emphasizes that God dislikes gifts of living beings.
It is possible to understand that, at least when the flood started, Noah disbelieved this nonsense. However, he was otherwise foolish. His drinking alcohol to the point of drunkenness and being embarrassed by his son, Ham, show his foolishness.
Why did Noah curse Ham’s son Canaan and not Ham for embarrassing him?
He did not curse his grandson. He was saying Canaan was cursed to have a father like Ham. Such a father will teach his son bad habits. This event helps us understand why the drinking event is followed by the Bible allowing sacrifices.
It could be inferred that God recognized that, because of the unsophisticated people of the time, the Bible had to allow for sacrifices; otherwise, the people would consider it irrational.