Bereshith: Desperately Lost

Bereshith: Desperately Lost

This year I was struck by the verse: 

הֵן֩ גֵּרַ֨שְׁתָּ אֹתִ֜י הַיּ֗וֹם מֵעַל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֲדָמָ֔ה וּמִפָּנֶ֖יךָ אֶסָּתֵ֑ר וְהָיִ֜יתִי נָ֤ע וָנָד֙ בָּאָ֔רֶץ וְהָיָ֥ה כָל־מֹצְאִ֖י יַֽהַרְגֵֽנִי׃

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

It describes the panic that Cain felt  after he was charged with the murder of  his brother.   It also struck me as what my father must have felt when he escaped form the Treblinka death camp.  I notice that the word Esther, my mother's name, is in the the verse.  It means hide.  It was my mother , Esther, who arranged for a hiding place for my father  when he was running and "anyone he met could kill him."  The verse is amazing .  One could even say that the troubles, the persecution, the need to hide, were the result of banishments: disenfranchisement from Poland, and, more remotely, exile from the Promised land, long ago. 

But how does this situation work with Divine justice?  Cain had killed his brother.  His exile was standard punishment for unpremeditated murder.  Since there was no precedent, he did not know what would happen when he struck the lethal blow. But Cain had done something in his rage that deserved punishment.   What had my father, and all those who escaped with him, done? 

Part of the reason for the  exile was that the blood of  Hevel cried out from the ground.  How much blood was crying out when my father was running?  But what could he have done? Was the only acceptable solution to die with his brothers and sisters? 

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When blood cries from the earth, no one is safe, anyone who meets you might kill you, it is a danger of exile.  Finding the right shelter is the Divine  intervention