By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
BOCA RATON, Florida — Rabbi Dr. Dan Ornstein has written the easy-to-read “Cain v. Abel: A Jewish Courtroom Drama,” an interesting, thoughtful, eye-opening, and thought-provoking book based on the two-dozen biblical sentences in Genesis 4 that report the fraternal murder of Abel by his brother Cain.
Rabbi Ornstein includes the rather exiting imaginative additions to the biblical episode by the individual or group that wrote an Aramaic translation of the biblical Hebrew known as Pseudo Jonathan, which added events to the Five Books of Moses that the original Hebrew does not even hint. The Aramaic translation adds to Eve’s statement, “I have gotten a man with the help of [an angel] of the Lord.” It is saying that an angel impregnated Eve. Rabbi Ornstein suggests in his version of the drama that Adam is angry at her infidelity and that he and Eve have been banished from Eden and that he must henceforth be a farmer of land that produces little and only after extremely difficult work. He blames his wife for both events and decides to separate from her. The couple does not reunite until they are 130 years old when they have a third son. Rabbi Ornstein suggests that the infidelity produced a toxic family situation during the 130 years that affected them and their two sons. During the period Eve showered Cain with more love than Abel and Adam did not disguise his angry feelings toward the illegitimate boy Cain.
Truth was the prosecutor at the trial and loving-kindness was Cain’s defense attorney. The prosecutor condemns humanity as being dishonest and violent. He reminds God during the Lord’s testimony that he and other angels advised God not to create such beings. The defense attorney defends humanity as having the potential to be just and kind. But we in the jury wonder if they ever behaved in this way. The witnesses were Adam, Eve, God, Abel’s blood, and Sin. Their testimonies are fascinating and make us, the jury to the trial, consider many important issues such as are humans expected to be their brother’s keeper, should Cain be found guilty despite confessing when he was raised by a dysfunctional family, should he be punished when he was never told that it is wrong to kill another person? Is God to blame? Rabbi Ornstein comments on each of the testimonies and this also makes us think.
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Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army chaplain corps. He is also the author of more than 50 books.