Cain and the City Life

On Qayin vs. Havel (Gen. 4): In a documentary piece about the Cold War expansion of industrial urban Russia into the arctic frontier, a sociologist posited that agrarian society is inherently expansionist and imperialist, because the farmer raises many children to help him work the farm, and then those children grow up into farmers in need of their own land. In this light, G!d "turning to" the offering Havel (the shepherd) makes from his livelihood while not turning to the offering of Qayin (the tiller of the ground) can be read as describing two different cultural attitudes: one of sufficiency (Havel) and one of never-sufficiency (Qayin).

The Qayinite is never satisfied with his work in G!d's Creation; it is never enough. The Havelite finds sufficiency in what G!d provides -- even to such an extent that he humbly offers the firstlings and the "choicest" from that provision, expressing a sense there of abundance. This latter attitude characterizes a faithful relationship with the Creator, one to which it is possible for HaShem (the G!dname of Divine Lovingkindness, used in this passage) to turn. In the nomadic shepherd's life, there is room for G!d's Chesed; in the strictly agrarian life of Qayin, there is never enough room. Consequently, Qayin, having failed to follow G!d's suggestion that he "improve himself" (which directly indicates that Qayin's sense of dissatisfaction is an internal issue), rises up against Havel—who, the Torah emphasizes here, is his brother—and kills him.

This desperate murder, once sealed with denial (4:9), curses Qayin to disinheritance of his place on the earth, though not to actual extinction until seven generations (4:15). In the meantime, he becomes a city-builder, in order to pass down an inheritance (4:17). This narrative resonates throughout known history, as, indeed, through the rest of the Torah. And how many times have Jews played the part of Havel? Yisraeyl being, after all, descended from Sheyt, who G!d provides "in place of Havel" (4:25)—the only difference, apparently, being that Havel died and Sheyt persists.

From a modern perspective, I see two major problems in this narrative: one implicating urbanism and one implicating nomadism.

Qayin's biography describes the city as the inheritance of the accursed. On the other hand, one of our principal religious objectives has for generations been the (re)building of Jerusalem, which we call Ir haKodesh, the Holy City, and which, one imagines, is not built into a state of holiness from a station of accursedness. First, we must absorb the obvious argument that Qayin builds one city (named Chanokh, for his son) and we, not Qayinites but rather Sheytites, build another city, which is different. The answer is straightforward: given that the Qayinite and Sheytite lines can be assumed to have assimilated into each other extensively over history (the Jewish project alone could be viewed as a way of threading one blood line through every nation on earth), identification with one or the other is a question of which inheritance is invoked via a particular action—not of which is inherently available to be invoked, because both are. That is to say, Qayin and Sheyt manifest not as people or peoples, per se, but as certain attitudes consisting in certain behavior patterns; and, among these, city-building is Qayinite (which stands to reason, cities as we know them being a non-self-sufficient outgrowth of agriculture).

Therefore, common urbanism is not holy, no matter where it is located. Furthermore, Jerusalem, or any other ir kodesh, cannot merely be a city built at a holy location. Its holiness must be manifest in the way of its building: distinct ("kodesh") not from other, common, cities, but from other, common, city-building. And, conversely, any location may, theoretically, become ir kodesh by way of holy city-building. Now the problem remains, what distinguishes holy, non-Qayinite, city-building?

To approach from the other side, it is important to bear in mind that Havel (from the shoresh meaning "vapor" or "futile"), while satisfied and not accursed, does not survive. The Torah offers no explanation for why the nomad (or, better to name him as well as a process, nomading) should die leaving no inheritance, except to say that his brother is desperately unhappy. So we must take it to be sufficient Revelation—it surely concords with history, at least—that passive non-building will eventually be driven to exhaustion or exterminated, overcome by unhappy, unsatisfied city-building (Qayin's shoresh indicates jealousy, artifice, and death). This tragic cycle, also known as brotherhood, calls for a transformative process.

Perhaps (moving finally to drash) the transformative process is holy city-building. If so, then we know at least three things of holy city-building: (1) it is neither passively nomadic nor expansionistly agrarian; (2) it expresses faith in the sufficiency and abundance of its Divine provision; and (3) it extends the prospect of a peaceable, sufficient home to desperately unhappy brothers. So, what does that look like, practically? And, where/how can we best find conditions to promote it in today's world?

[This archive post on Cain and Abel brought to you by request of my friend Arwen, who is also a smartypants Jew and writer.]