Parashat Bereishit

Which God Created To Do- Man As Partner In Creation

Shaar Hagilgulim, a kabbalistic work, identifies two types of souls - those with Abel's nature and those with Cain's nature. This is not a division between good and evil, as even great leaders possess Cain's nature, but rather a distinction of character: Abel souls are gentler and more pleasant, while Cain souls are stronger and more creative. Cain is the first person to build.  He constructs a city, and his descendants become the fathers of human civilization: the first shepherd, the inventor of music, the creator of weapons. This nature contains tremendous power for innovation and creation, but also danger . Cain is also the first murderer. It's possible this nature continued through Naama, daughter of Lemech, who according to one midrash was Noah's wife (Genisis Rabba 23:3), and thus both lines - Seth's (through Noah) and Cain's (through Naama) - continue in humanity.

Man was not created merely to preserve the world but to improve it. The nature of Cain is part of our makeup as human beings. What is a person’s purpose in this world? To put it simply – as the text hints, “There was no man to till the soil” (Gen. 2:5) . His task is “to till it and tend it” (2:15). Man is charged with preserving the world. He is the one who must water the trees and ensure that nothing is damaged. But surely man’s task cannot be summed up as being the Garden of Eden’s caretaker, to tighten loose screws and clean up spills here and there. 

Man is charged with a greater mission, namely, “which God created to do (laasot)” (Gen. 2:3). Man was created to take dynamic action, not just to preserve the present state of things.  The verse "which God created to do" teaches that the world was intentionally created incomplete - God deliberately left things for man to finish. Therefore it is permitted and even obligatory to intervene in nature: to heal the sick, help the poor, work the land and improve it. Even circumcision expresses this - man does not leave nature as it is but improves it. This is not heresy but partnership in creation. Innovation and improvement are part of man's mission in the world, whether in the material realm; metalworking, agriculture, or in the spiritual realm ; music, art, Torah.

But with this power comes the critical question: Are we using it correctly? Today we possess tools and power that previous generations could never imagine, but the question is what we are doing with all this. Our sages say of David and Bathsheba, “She was intended for David…only that he took her before she was ripe” (Sanhedrin 107a). The same applies to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as well. Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge before its time . The fruit wasn't inherently forbidden, only not yet ripe. So too today: Do we have more power than we can handle? Is our wisdom greater than our deeds? The Mishna says "fear of sin takes precedence over wisdom" - not that wisdom is bad, but that one must always know how to use it. The power to create is a divine gift, but it demands tremendous responsibility. This is the task of the "nature of Cain" within us all.

Questions to Contemplate

If "Cain's nature" is the creative and innovative power in humanity, yet Cain is also the first murderer - how do we distinguish between innovation that improves the world and innovation that destroys it? What is the line separating creative construction from creative destruction?

Rabbi Steinsaltz speaks of fruit eaten before it ripened - are there technological or scientific areas where humanity is advancing too quickly, before we are morally or spiritually ready to use them properly? What are the signs that a fruit is not yet ripe?