וכל העם ראים את הקולת God Wrestling: A Conversation in Four Parts. Part One

( (15) And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the horn, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off. (16) And they said unto Moses: ‘Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.’ (17) And Moses said unto the people: ‘Fear not; for God is come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, that ye sin not.’ (18) And the people stood afar off; but Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. (19) And the LORD said unto Moses: Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel: Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

1. And all the people saw. This teaches that there was not among them one person who was blind, and from where (do we know) that there were none who were dumb? Scripture teaches 'And all the people answered (all that the Lord has spoken we will do!') (Shmot 18:9) And from where (do we know) that was not among them a deaf person? Scripture teaches ('Then he took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said "All that the Lord has spoken) we will do and we will hear"'. (Shmot 24:7)

2. They saw the voices. They saw that which was heard; that which it is not possible to see in another place.

They saw the voices. This can be compared to, 'and my heart saw', (Kohelet 1:16). They observed i.e. understood or discerned) in the matter of the voices that they could no endure them. As they said, 'Let me not hear the voice of the Lord my God again and this great fire let me not see again, lest I will die'. (Dvarim 18:16)

(8) And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden toward the cool of the day; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. (9) And the LORD God called unto the man, and said unto him: ‘Where art thou?’ (10) And he said: ‘I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ (11) And He said: ‘Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?’ (12) And the man said: ‘The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’ (13) And the LORD God said unto the woman: ‘What is this thou hast done?’ And the woman said: ‘The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’ (14) And the LORD God said unto the serpent: ‘Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle, and from among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. (15) And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; they shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise their heel.’ (16) Unto the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’ (17) And unto Adam He said: ‘Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying: Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. (18) Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. (19) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’

(8) And Cain spoke unto Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. (9) And the LORD said unto Cain: ‘Where is Abel thy brother?’ And he said: ‘I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?’ (10) And He said: ‘What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.

(3) The word אל in our verse is to be understood as equivalent to על, upon. We have a similar use of the word אל in Ezekiel 18,6 אל ההרים לא אכל, “he did not eat upon the mountains.” There are numerous examples in Scriptures of such a use of the word אל. In Bereshit Rabbah 22,7 the subject of the conversation between the two brothers is described as follows: They were discussing how to carve up the earth between them. They agreed that one of them would lay claim to the real estate, whereas the other would own all the movable objects on earth. Thereupon one of them claimed that the ground the other stood on belonged to him, whereas the second one claimed that the clothing his brother wore actually belonged to him. Kayin, who had laid claim to the earth, told Hevel to fly off as he did not want him to set foot on his earth. Hevel countered by telling Kayin to strip off his clothing. The resulting feud led to Kayin killing Hevel.
Rabbi Yehudah bar Ami said that they quarreled about whether the original woman had died immediately after having eaten from the tree of knowledge, and that G’d had given Adam a substitute for her, [so that they had both not been the children of a sinful mother and therefore not inherited a tendency to sin, Ed.] or if they had been born of Chavah, Adam’s original wife.
Yet another opinion (Rav Hunna) quoted in the Midrash describes the subject of their quarrel as being the extra twin sister born with Hevel. Hevel claimed her as his wife, seeing she had been born with him, whereas Kayin claimed her as his wife, seeing he was the eldest. We need to understand why these scholars in the Midrash offer so many divergent views as to what Kayin and Hevel quarreled about. Not only this, but in the commentaries dealing with the mystical dimension of the Torah, the kabbalah, we find yet more opinions on this subject. Moreover, in the Jerusalem Targum the version of our verse is equivalent to: ”Kayin said to his brother: ‘lets go outside and have a talk.” When they had gone outside, Kayin said to his brother that there is no justice and no judge in the universe, that there is no afterlife, neither is there a reward or punishment. If there were, why would G’d have rejected his offering and accepted that of Hevel? Hevel disagreed, saying that there was a judge (G’d) that there was justice, and that there was a judge, There was reward and punishment and there was an afterlife beyond the material physical world they lived in. The world had been created as an act of love, not as Kayin had said that there was no love. Proof was the very fact that his offering had been accepted, seeing that he had served his Creator faithfully. Seeing that their argument had become not merely philosophical but personal, Kayin attacked his brother Hevel and killed him.