Torah Study - 7/2/22

(13) Cain said to יהוה, “My punishment is too great to bear!

The Sages taught in a baraita: Three came with a demand (evasively), and these are they: Cain, Esau, and Manasseh. Cain came with a demand, as it is written: “My sin is too great to bear” (Genesis 4:13). Cain said before God: Master of the Universe, is my transgression greater than the transgression of the 600,000 who are destined to sin before You with the Golden Calf, and You will nevertheless forgive them? There should be atonement for my transgression as well...

The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: Anyone who speaks malicious speech increases his sins to the degree that they correspond to the three cardinal transgressions: Idol worship, and forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed. This can be derived from a verbal analogy based on the word “great.” It is written here: “May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaks great things” (Psalms 12:4). And it is written with regard to idol worship: “And Moses returned to the Lord, and said: Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold” (Exodus 32:31).With regard to forbidden sexual relations it is written that when Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce Joseph he responded: “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God” (Genesis 39:9). With regard to bloodshed it is written, after Cain murdered his brother: “And Cain said to the Lord: My punishment is greater than I can bear” (Genesis 4:13). The Torah describes each of these three cardinal sins with the word “great” in the singular, whereas malicious speech is described with the plural term “great things,” indicating that it is equivalent to all three of the other transgressions together.The Gemara asks: Granted that with regard to malicious speech the verse uses the plural: “Great things,” but the plural indicates a minimum of two. If so, one can only say that malicious speech is equivalent to two of the cardinal transgressions. The Gemara responds: Which of them could be taken out as less than the other two? All three are equal. Therefore malicious speech must be equivalent to all three.In the West, Eretz Yisrael, they say: Third speech, i.e., malicious speech about a third party, kills three people. It kills the one who speaks malicious speech, and the one who accepts the malicious speech when he hears it, and the one about whom the malicious speech is said.

(14) Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence and become a restless wanderer on earth—anyone who meets me may kill me!”