How can I, Kayin, heal my pain?

Kayin&Hevel

Will I, Hevel, heal my victimhood?

 

Kayin&Hevel
The sculpture of this parable was stimulated by
puzzle-piece 37 Violence at Adora/Israel and in Erfurt/Germany
See an earlier sculpture - integrating the version of the story in the Qur'an - in pp20

2002_05_08 ; last update: 2009_08_11

BR O T H E RS

 

The relevance of the parable is
the pain of Kayin and the victimhood of Hevel.
It's my task now - in the face of Erfurt&Adora -

to heal the pain of Kayin in Me and

If you want to win someone as a friend, don't give him a gift, but cause him to give a gift to you. [a sentence my daughter heard today - 2002_11_14 - from her teacher in "Group Facilitating"]

to heal the victimhood of Hevel in Me

I remember to have read once in the Holy Hadith
(Islamic tradition that followed the Qur'an)
"If a Muslim kills another Muslim,
they are both in Hell."

What is the pain of Kayin
that made him kill his brother?
How can Kayin's pain heal?

Why did Hevel act as "hevel"
= a waft of breath or air
and let himself be killed?
How can Hevel's victimhood heal?

In this case I want to do - what I usually refrain from doing -
I'll use the learning method of distancing myself from others.

The parable reveals the deep reasons for human non-coexistence.
In Western traditions not only the meaning has not been understood,
in Christian translations, the very text has been pitiably distorted!

 

 

See this website:
The selection of the text used as caption for the picture,
deprives the text of its relevance for me.
For I'm not a murderer, am I?

But the story must be relevant for me,
or it wouldn't be there.

I now want to stick to the text and context of the parable
and interpret it strictly from the inside.

 

 

Before the message encoded in the Abraham/Israel Saga starts to unfold,
the Bible tells a few interconnected parables about Creation and Mankind.

There is the twofold story about Creation from polar perspectives.
[Gn 1 - 2]

There is the absurd story about Wo/Man needing to choose choice.
[Gn 3]

The legend about the Flood , adopted from extra-Biblical sources,
serves to explain, how the Creator learnt to accept his Creation.
[Gn 6 - 8]

In between there is the one realistic story about 2 realistic men.
Supposedly the first humans born from a woman.
[Gn 4]

Now the human knew Havva his wife, she became pregnant and bore Kayin. She said: Kaniti/I-have-created a man with YHWH. as to this meaning of "kaniti" see Gn 14:19; 14:22 "the highest God, creator, konaeh, of heavenand earth." She continued bearing - his brother, Hevel. Now Hevel became a shepherd of flocks, and Kayin beame a worker of the soil. Now it was, after the passing of days that Kayin brought, from the fruit of the soil, a gift to YHWH, and as for Hevel, he too brought - from the firstborn of his flock, from their fat-parts. YHWH had regard for Hevel and his gift, for Kayin and his gift he had no regard. Kayin became exceedingly upset and his face fell. YHWH said to Kayin: Why are you so upset? why has your face fallen? Is it not thus: If you do well in bearing it and if you don't do well, at the entrance is sin, crouching, and for you is its desire, and you shall master it. [I had to deviate from Fox' translation!] Kayin said to Hevel his brother... But then it was, when they were out in the field that Kayin rose up against Hevel his brother and he killed him.

 

 

 

The questions behind the fourth chapter of Genesis are:
What is so unbearable for me, that it can cause me to kill,
though killing certainly doesn't make things better for me?
And what is the role of my brother, who lets himself be killed?

When I used to teach this story to students or teacher candidates,
if often took me eight 90 minute lessons to make them understand:

"tua res agitur", as the Romans said, it's you who are at stake.

How can I sculpt this in writing? And in English?
In unfolding the reasons for the fatal clash
between the symbolic first two humans,
as if it happened to THEM in the PAST
 I must not forget, that they are Me now.

 

 

On April 14, 2012 , on a TV program about the Rambam (Maimonides) I learnt:

"And YHWH said:
Yes, Man [ha-adam] has become like ONE of us to know good and evil...
And the man [ha-adam] knew Chawa his wife."

 

The keyword of the story about choosing choice is
la-da'at, i.e. to know, i.e. 'to differentiate'.
We cannot "know" light, if there is not darkness,
we cannot "know" love, if we haven't experienced non-love.
But the same Hebrew verb means also the opposite:
to make love, to unite.

 

This union results in the first birth, the first human creation,
and Chava, "the mother of everything living" [Gn 3,20], rejoices:
"I've created [caniti] a man [ish] with YHWH"
[caniti is a rarer word for 'created', see Gn 14,19.22].

 

Hevel's name needs no association to interpret it.
It's very meaning - Hauch in German - is darkly forboding.
Though Hevel is the second and like an appendix to Kayin,
they are equal: each one represents an ideal of Man.

Kayin serves/works [oved] the land [adamah]
which is the very vocation of Man [adam]
as stated even before Man existed [Gn 2,5].

Hevel is pasturing sheep, i.e. is caring for creatures,
as did the two greatest leaders, Moses and David.

 

A not less important implication in Hevel's identity is,
that shepherds at that time were wandering nomads.
SETTLING, which often implies stagnating [Jr 48,11],
as well as clinging to the land, warring for the land,
is not much favored in Israel's symbolic pre-history.

 

Israel's symbolic forefathers are cast as wandering shepherds,
though their story is set in the time period of Egyptian civilization:
"Every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians." [Gn 43,32; 46,34]

Click and stay

Get up from the computer and dance with me a gypsi dance. The gypsies, or as they want to be called, the Sinti and Roma, have been the wandering people par excellence for the last thousand years. At their festival, exactly a year ago, at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France, for the black Sara Kali and the two Maries , I enjoyed them playing this on the street.