Original Sin - A Jewish Viewpoint

Rabbi Melanie Aron

October 13, 2001

Harold Kushner in his book, "How good do we have to be" has a great chapter on original sin. It's not a concept we usually connect with Judaism, as Judaism does not believe that Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience was passed down and inherited by all their descendents. Nor do we, as Jews, believe that each of us is born a sinner, because each of us was born of a sexual and thus, to some Christian thinkers, sinful act. In fact Rabbi Kushner points out, the word sin is not even found in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve at all. Instead the word sin appears first in the Bible in the next chapter, in the story of Cain and Abel, as God warns Cain, "if you do not do right, sin crouches at the door."

What is the sin that we learn about in this fourth chapter of Genesis? It is not disobedience. Some call it jealousy, but Kushner considers it the sin of not believing that there is love enough to go around. It is a universal sin, creeping up on us whether we are first born or last, whether we are students competing for the praise of our teachers, or workers vying for the attention of our boss. We are at root insecure about the sufficiency of what we need, and therefore our competition often turns bitter.

Psychologists tell us that children are so dependent upon their parents love that they find it hard to be angry at their parents for playing favorites. Instead it is easier to be angry at their brother and sister for being favored. Think of this theme repeating itself over and over in the Biblical text, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers and even Korach the rebel cousin of Aaron and Moses.

This belief that if someone else is loved, he or she is stealing that love from us, comes through most poignantly in Esau's cry, "have you but one blessing, father?"

This tension is sometimes seen in families in which different siblings have totally different roles to play, one is responsible, for example, the other the fun loving, one studious and one athletic. One political commentator notes how many prominent politicians have an embarrassing sibling: President Clinton and his stepbrother Roger, President Carter and Billy, President Johnson and Sam Houston Johnson. Even Richard Nixon had a brother who tried to cash in on his brother's fame in embarrassing ways.

Thankfully most families work such that children recognize that they cannot win through rivalry and that they must ultimately share their parents' love with their sibling. Once this happens, they begin to identify with other children like themselves. Through that identification, psychologists tell us, come the seeds of a sense of justice, a decision that if we cannot be loved more than another, all must be treated equally and fairly.

Biblical commentators note that Genesis begins with the rivalry of Cain and Abel leading to fratricide, but ends with two brothers Menasheh and Ephraim, Joseph's sons, who are not competitive with each other. They share their grandfather's blessing without squabbling over who takes the leading role.

Others note that our reading of the Torah begins with Cain and Abel but ends in Deuteronomy with two brothers, Aaron and Moses, where the younger becomes more prominent, but that does not estrange him from his brother. Perhaps due to the circumstances of their lives, they each felt loved uniquely and having been separated enjoyed being reunited. For some reason they both had faith that love is not a buffet line where the food runs out before your turn. They were each able to take pleasure in the other's successes and accomplishments. Their relationship becomes a model of the Torah healing through its guidance the original sin of Cain and Abel.