Although this post is generally a summary of vorts from R' Yissachar Frand, he was unable to give his Thursday Night Parsha shiur this week as he is still recovering from Covid. However, his son R' Yaakov Frand gave the shiur in his place and I have summarized some of the thoughts he said over on the parsha evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
In this week's parsha we have a discussion of the fight between Kayin and Hevel, but not of the argument itself. In Bereishis 4:8, the Torah states וַיֹּ֥אמֶר קַ֖יִן אֶל־הֶ֣בֶל אָחִ֑יו וַֽיְהִי֙ בִּֽהְיוֹתָ֣ם בַּשָּׂדֶ֔ה וַיָּ֥קָם קַ֛יִן אֶל־הֶ֥בֶל אָחִ֖יו וַיַּֽהַרְגֵֽהוּ.
The pasuk is interesting as it mentions that Kayin said something, but then it does not repeat what was said. Instead it describes that they were in the field and that Kayin killed Hevel.
Rashi explains that the conversation between the brothers was an argument, but even he does not give the details about what they fought over.
The Medrash offers three views on the subject of the fight. The first is that they were arguing about the division of assets of the world - who would receive the land and who would receive the movable items. The second opinion was that they had a fight over whose land would have the Beis HaMikdash built on it. The third opinion was that the fight was about a woman - the extra sister who was born to one of them.
R' Frand said as an aside that a famous person (not identified by him) said that all the fights in the world can be derived from these three theories. People fight over possessions, or religion or women.
But the question is, why does the Torah not tell us the reason that they fought? There are many medrashim where the entire story is left out of the Torah, such as Avraham being thrown in the fiery furnace. But here the Torah says that Kayin said something, but not what was said that caused the fight.
If the fight was important then tell us what they were fighting about. And if its not important, then why even mention the fight?
R' Frand quoted R' Bukspan from Miami who offered a novel take on the reason why the story was never told - because it does not matter. Many times, a person will get into a fight with another person and the fight itself will carry over long beyond the item they are fighting over. Sometimes a fight will carry on so long that neither person can even remember why they were fighting.
This is what the Torah is telling us - they got in a fight. What they fought about does not matter. In fact, what the fight is about never matters. What matters is that there was a fight.
The Torah then continues and tells us that Kayin was punished. The Torah is not punitive and what follows is a consequence, because it is a sequence. The punishment for Kayin was that he would be a nomad and would constantly be on the move. Why is this middah k'neged middah? Because a person gets into a fight because they don't want to move. I am standing on my position and not going to budge.
The Torah tells us that if you get into a fight because you are standing your ground, you will never have serenity and will not be at peace. This is why Kayin's punishment was to be a nomad.
R' Frand said a final thought on this theme. Kayin had many grandchildren. Shes also had many grandchildren. And many of these grandchildren had the same name, like Lemech and Chanoch and other names that there were similar, but not identical. Why? Because the Torah tells us that a person who gets into arguments can do the exact same thing as someone else who succeeds. But he will not succeed, because for him, everything is about the fight. From the time that he wakes up in the morning until he goes to sleep at night, he is thinking about the fight. And if the fight consumes his every thought while he does his daily tasks, he will not be successful.
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