BLAMING CAIN: AN EXAMINATION OF THE JEWISH CONCEPT OF JUDGING L’KHAF ZEKHUT (Benefit of the doubt)

            Cain is the Torah’s mythic founder of murder and violence, the paradigm of human thuggery and brutality who rightly earned his horrible reputation:  after all he was the first to murder by murdering his brother, and surely, all murder is fratricide.  Yet, I argue that Cain the murderer is far more complicated than we faithful readers admit.  Centuries of commentators, seeking to cast Cain’s evildoing in cut and dry terms, have read the Torah’s sparse narrative about the siblings in one exclusive interpretive vein:  Cain selfishly, rudely offered God garbage and was rightly rebuffed by God in favor of his brother Abel.  Predictably, Cain’s clueless arrogance made him explode with anger at his innocent brother whom he murdered.  My reading of the brothers’ offerings poses a different possibility.  Cain offered poor produce to God not because he couldn’t care less;  on the contrary, he cared too much about pleasing God, Adam, Eve, for whose love and favor he competed with Abel.  But Cain was a farmer, tilling the soil that was poisoned as the result of God’s punishment of Adam before the expulsion from Eden. Cain offered an impoverished gift to God because that was all he had.  Why did God still reject his offering?  Only God knows, but the early commentators nonetheless dismiss Cain’s motives, condemning not only his murderous behavior, but everything about him.  In their interpretive hands throughout history, Cain becomes an easy stereotype, unworthy of the slightest benefit of the doubt. 

 

            Let me reiterate that there was nothing good about what Cain did to Abel.  One’s darkest feelings never justify destroying another person:  that is the main moral message of Cain and Abel.   But a possible sub-textual message peeking out from between the lines of the story is that we need to be careful to judge people l’khaf zekhut, giving them the benefit of the doubt.  Explaining the concept, the Talmud notes that if you see someone doing something that you could interpret favorably or suspiciously, start by judging favorably, until you have actual evidence that he’s engaged in wrongdoing.  If you see someone clearly doing wrong, don’t demonize her by assuming that she must be unrepentantly evil; what she’s doing is evil, but she may possess other very fine moral qualities that you could encourage so she refrains from doing wrong in the future.  Getting all the facts and the full picture of who a person is allows us to understand his or her good and bad behavior with more nuance, compassion, and understanding of how to prevent or enhance that behavior in the future. If this is the case for someone like Cain, how much more so is it the case for someone who is a generally good human being? Judging l’khaf zekhut also forces us out of our lazy, often bigoted tendency to read one person’s actions through the deterministic lenses of race, class, gender, and geography.  We learn to examine critically that one person’s successes and failings, without falling into the trap of falsely assuming anything stereotypical about him or her or the background and people from which he or she derives. 

 

            The great Torah scholar Maimonides writes in his code of Jewish Law, the Mishneh Torah, that judging another person’s actions with such thoroughgoing generosity is the domain of the Talmid Ḥakham, the wise person distinguished by Torah study.  (Laws of Character, 5:7) This implies of course that such a quality of character is so difficult to achieve it is reserved for people who possess superlative intellectual and spiritual characteristics.  However, in an earlier work, his commentary on the Mishnah (the oral Torah), Maimonides also writes that any and every person should judge others l’khaf zekhut as much as possible, with the understanding that a person’s reputation for wrongdoing should make us suspicious even of his good deeds until his sincerity is proven otherwise (Commentary to Tractate Avot 1:6).    Both of Maimonides’ teachings show us that approaching other people’s actions, personalities and motives l’khaf zekhut can be extremely difficult.  It is easier to generalize, make snap assumptions, and not examine individuals and situations with what can be uncomfortable nuance and ambiguity, especially when we already don’t like the person we’re judging. Yet both teachings also remind us to struggle with this negatively judgmental impulse. It might be easier and it certainly might make us feel a great sense of catharsis and righteousness to quickly assume someone’s guilt and to condemn that person.  But ultimately, it isn’t fair, it’s intellectually and morally sloppy, and it contributes little to actual justice.  From a Jewish values perspective, judging l’khaf zekhut, when applied wisely, prevents us from lashing out angrily and too quickly at the behavior and presence in the world of others, especially those we aren’t inclined to like.  In that way, we bring more peace into our relationships and into the world.

 

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