Kayin and Hevel, the first siblings in history, engaged in the first sibling rivalry dispute in history, ended in the first crime in history.
Kayin who cultivated crops, offered a meal offering of flaxseed to H”S, and Hevel who raised animals, offered a sacrificial lamb.
When H”S turned to Hevel’s offering and disregarded Kayin’s, his reaction was to kill his brother.
We can understand Kayin’s pain, it hurts to have your goodwill gestures ignored, specially by H”S.
The pasuk says: “And H”S said to Kayin, ‘why are you annoyed, and why has your countenance fallen?’”
Being rejected by G-d is a valid reason to be hurt. The problem was that the hurt turned into anger.
“Why are you annoyed?”
H”S knew that Kayin was fuming, but He wanted to teach him and us, that when we are upset we have to gauge our emotions to ascertain we feel indignant. Are we hurt because of our own failure, or because someone else did better than we did?
In such a competitive society, when we find ourselves insulted or angry, we must judge the source of our emotions: is our annoyance subjective or objective? If we feel upset only because we are pitting ourselves against others, and we feel not so much that we lost but that they won, then we are wandering into very dangerous territory because this will foster feelings of resentment and jealousy. The story of Kayin and Hevel proves that such emotions are destructive and our focus will be more on how to get back to that person than on being objective which gives us the ability to grow and be better in the future.
Excerpts taken from “Rabbi Frand in the Parashah”
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