How can I, Kayin, heal my pain?

Kayin&Hevel

Will I, Hevel, heal my victimhood?

 

Kayin&Hevel

Third Page

 

 

Of course, Kayin has no information or skills to do this.
And so the pain of not feeling worthy explodes and kills.
But was it that immediate?
Wasn't there a moment of hesitation,
of desperately looking for a way out?
A chance for a supporter to save him from killing?

The rudely overriding traditional translation says:
"Kayin said to Hevel his brother: let us go out to the field.
And when they were in the field,
Kayin rose up against his brother Hevel and killed him."

 

The TEXT is:
"And Kayin said to Hevel his brother:
- - -
And it was, during their being in the field,
and Kayin stood up to his Hevel his brother
and killed him."

It is NOT said, what Kayin said to his brother.
But it IS said, that he communicated with Hevel,
BEFORE he killed him.

My INTERPRETATION is:
He might have said anything to give Hevel and himself a chance,

from threatening :
"You think, you're better than I, don't you. Well, I'll show you!!"

to warning:
"I'm so mad at you, you better run away, lest I kill you!!"

to asking for help:
"Don't you care at all, how I was humiliated?"

 

Hevel did not respond.
Neither by giving his brother support.
Nor by running away.
Nor by defending himself.
He just wasn't there at all.
He was nothing but a hevel, a waft.

 

In 1987 I was giving a seminary at Hofgeismar, near Kassel/Germany:

"Muss der Mensch des Menschen Opfer sein oder Frei ist, wer seine Abhaengigkeiten zu gestalten versteht."

"Does Man have to be the victim of Man or Free is who knows how to fashion [gestalten] his dependencies."

A participant slipped a note to my desk,
words by the poets of poets, Rainer Maria Rilke:

 

Adam and Eve's mourning for Hevel
discovered in a museum at Kassel.
The painting - 16th century - made my heart churn, and still does.
Since I couldn't find it on the Internet, I photographed my 2 slides.

 

Hevel, beautiful, without a wound, as if sleeping.
His mother/lover drowned in her grief.
His father wringing his hands,
looking neither at his sons, nor at his wife, nor at God.
To the right an altar reminding one of the Binding of Isaac.(Gn22)
Except that Isaac was NOT killed, and there wasn't any sacrifice!!!

The detail hints at three stinging symbols:
The lion, so sad about needing to kill a lamb;
a helpless God behind him ~~~
and Kayin who wants to dissolve~~~

Had Gadia

Why is the animal kingdom based on eating and being eaten?
Somewhere in the RUOW books God is also grieving over this.
"Predatory behavior doesn't have to be", I remember.
All these skillful TV documentaries about animals.
Killing and getting killed, is the overall tone.
I take my eyes away and close the channel.

 

"and YHWH said to Kayin: WHERE IS Hevel, YOUR BROTHER?"

It's the same rare word for "where" in Gods question
after Man had chosen choice [Gn3,9]:
"WHERE ARE YOU?"

But Man could not live up to his choice.
He hid ~~And he blamed Woman for it.
Nor could Woman live up to her choice.
She too hid. And she blamed the snake.

At first, Kayin also shrugs off responsibility.
"I don't know.
Am I my brother's keeper?"

But when YHWH reflects his deed to him:
"What have you done!
The voice of the bloods of your brother
are screaming to me from the land!"
and explains the consequences for the land and for him
[note the interdependence between adam and adamah!] ,
Kayin is able to be aware and to admit:

"My sin is greater than can be borne"
not "punishment", as the traditional translation wants it,
but "avon", a term for "sin".

"Yes, you evicted me today from the face of the land,
and from your face I am hiding;
and I'll be wandering-meandering [na-wa-nad] on the earth,
and everyone who finds me, will kill me."

 

While WO/Man had nothing to say to God's eviction,
Kayin communicates, Kayin moves his pain
of being physically banned from the land and his livelihood
and psychologically from the intimacy with God.
And he also knows how to express his fear,
that others will do to him, what he did to Hevel.

 

Despite evicting them God took care of Wo/Man
by making them skin gowns and dressing them [Gn 3,21].
How much more will he take care of Kayin and his fear,
YHWH puts a mark on Kayin, so that no one will kill him.

"Reality comes in levels",
says the first of the Basic Principles
put forward in God's "Reality Class".
This is visible in these Biblical parables.

 

What looks like a punishment for Wo/Man
is actually the pain about the unavoidable:
the eviction from the womb into duality.

The same is true for Kayin.
He is forced to become mobile.
But it's exactly because of this,
that he becomes the father of civilization,
of the basic crafts and arts.[Gn 4,17-22].

Does this mean, the land should not be tilled?
Should we all be wandering-meandering?
Does this mean Kayin's murder is justified?
Is Hevel responsible for having been killed?

 

Nothing of all this.
The relevance of the parable is
the pain of Kayin and the victimhood of Hevel
And it's our task now - in the face of Erfurt&Adora -
to heal the pain of Kayin in us
and
to heal the victimhood of Hevel in us.