Keepers and Responsibility

Genesis 4:9-13 Rabbi Marder led Torah Study 10/11/08

Cain – is he a Shomer / Keeper

And another interesting note about this episode is that Abel was the “keeper of sheep”.

We discussed the word “shomer” and the various ways it has been used and interpreted. A keeper – as it refers to one who is “shomer Shabbat” as well as “God is my keeper” and “Shomer Yisrael” the keeper of Israel. The word is used throughout Torah.

(There is even a rap song about this )

Interesting related commentary

Adam was to ‘watch over the garden of Eden’, the Cheribim ‘watch over the way to Eden. Later the term will be found in relation to Abraham.

Samson Raphael Hirsch says that the Question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is at the foundation of morality.
‘everyone should know where their brother is.’

As opposed to the Cain principle – ‘everyone is for themselves’

As Hirsch teaches the ‘brother’ extends to all people. But you are responsible for all people close to you first.

Richard Freidman translation “Am I my brother’s watchman?”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: Speaks of the culture of responsibility vs a culture of rights.
He emphasizes that Judiasm is based on our responsibilities.

Adam & Eve – is about personal responsibility
Cain – is about evading moral responsibility
Noah – abdicates his collective responsibility
In Babel – responsibility comes from outside of the individual

The tendency is to blame others for what happens.

R. Sacks tells a joke :
In a class he asked: who destroyed the walls of Jericho? From the back of the class one child replied: please sir, it wasn’t me. Outraged, the teacher wrote to the parents. ‘For a year I’ve tried to teach your son the book of Joshua, and when I asked, who destroyed the walls of Jericho, he replied: Please sir it wasn’t me.’ Next day he received an angry letter in reply. ‘If our son says it wasn’t him, then it wasn’t him.’ In despair the teacher went to the chairman of the governors and told him the story. Sighing, the governor got out his cheque-book, wrote a cheque, and said: ‘Here’s $1000. Stop complaining and get the walls repaired.’

We have victim culture – always trying to blame others and not take responsibility for our actions.

The essential question is how to raise a child with a good sense of responsibility? Need to start from an early age asking them to help others.

BOOK: To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility
by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
overview and questions

The discussion turned to the topic of ‘Health Care’ and is it a right or a responsibility.

And Alan P brought up how driving a car is an example to illustrate the role of rights vs responsibility.

Irene B pointed out that the responsibility extends not only to others but also to yourself.

Saul W was concerned about the limits of ‘keeping your brother’ in an example if you offer your brother a job to help him and he turns you down. Where is the limit?

Linda L reminded us of Heschel’s quote “some are guilty; all are responsible”

R Marder’s note to us after the class:
Below is a link to a short article you might enjoy, focusing on environmental themes of the holidays in Tishrei, primarily Yom Kippur and Sukkot. It includes a reference to the statement of Abraham Joshua Heschel that came up in yesterday’s class: “Some are guilty; all are responsible.”

The article is by Dr. Jeremy Benstein, author of “The Way Into Judaism and the Environment.”

The theme of Tshuvah that we focus on for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur was linked and a comment that it would be good for our country to go through the process of tshuvah!

Diane R commented that this would be a good opportunity to us to build the World Community and have them focus on responsibility

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NEXT : “What have you done?” Is an expression of horror.
“your brother’s bloods cries out” OR “screams”

Blood Plural form in Hebrew used here: Dmay – plural of Dam

Interpretations vary:
Rashi – the blood is from multiple wounds.

Or

This refers to Abel’s blood and that of his descendents.
See “Cain Murders – and Walks” page 59 of the book:
Book: The Genesis of Justice By Alan M. Dershowitz


Also the reference to the famous verse from Mishna: “"He who destroys a single life, it is as if he destroyed an entire world." (Sanhedrin 4:5).”
A link that discusses this and also shows the similarities of this in the Quran interpretation and translation as well


Similarly as noted in the Yom Kippur sermon: “ the effects of what we do goes forward to effect those that follow…”

The notion of the blood screaming or shrieking implies that one cannot murder with impunity. There must be a reckoning.

Rachael S noticed that Cain was alone. There was no one else there. But even so God heard the shrieking of the blood.

This led to the reading of a dynamic poem by Hayyim Nahman Bialik
who in 1903 wrote in response to the brutal, bloody Kishniev pogrom, which was instigated by agents of the Czar trying to divert social unrest and political anger away from the Czar and toward the Jewish minority.

ON THE SLAUGHTER

Heavens! Seek mercy for me!
If there is a God among you and he has a clear path-
Yet I have not found him–
Pray for me.
My heart is dead and no prayer lingers on my lips,
The hand has lost its strength, nor is there any hope-
How long? When will this end? How long?

Hangman! Here is a neck–arise and slaughter!
My neck is like a dog’s, you have the arm of the axe,
All the world is for me a scaffold-
And we-we are the choice few!
My blood flows free-
Strike with the axe and the blood of murder will gush forth,
Blood soaks through your shirt-
And will not be erased forever.

If there be justice-let her appear now!
But if, after my extinction from the face of the firmament justice appears,
Let her seal be overturned forever!
And in eternal evil let the heavens rot;
You too go, wicked spirits, in this cruel injustice
And in your blood live and suckle.

Cursed be he who says: “Avenge!”
Vengeance such as this, vengeance for the blood of a small boy,
Satan himself has not devised-
Let that blood pierce the abyss!
Let that blood pierce the depths of darkness,
Let it eat away the darkness and there undermine
All the rotted foundations of the earth.

–Chaim Nachman Bialik (translated by Richard Silverstein)


He also wrote the similar piece, “In the City of Slaughter” (excerpt)

ARISE and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of
thine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.
Proceed thence to the ruins, the split walls reach,
Where wider grows the hollow, and greater grows the
breach;
Pass over the shattered hearth, attain the broken wall
Whose burnt and barren brick, whose charred stones reveal
The open mouths of such wounds, that no mending
Shall ever mend, nor healing ever heal.
There will thy feet in feathers sink, and stumble
On wreckage doubly wrecked, scroll heaped on manuscript,
Fragments again fragmented—
Pause not upon this havoc; go thy way.
The perfumes will be wafted from the acacia bud
And half its blossoms will be feathers,
Whose smell is the smell of blood!
And, spiting thee, strange incense they will bring—
Banish thy loathing—all the beauty of the spring

Whole poem link