Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/90

 The Book of Genesis

72

But even this by no means exhausts the teaching of Judaism in regard to sin and punishment, and repentance and forgiveness. The next lesson will have something to add to what has been presented here.

NOTES The above

outline

two

presents

ings of Judaism, that of

human

and independent teachand that of the pos-

distinct

lirotherhood.

mastery over the inclination to sin. The teacher should serious mistake of attempting to draw both lessons from the story at one session. By so doing she will only nullify the of

sibility

make

not

effect of

may is

the

each.

develop

She may content herself with

either

lesson,

or she

Each

each

thought separately at successive sessions. worthy of such presentation. Should she resolve upon the

course, brst.

we would suggest that the lesson of brotherhood The lesson of the possible mastery of sin may

latter

be presented follow,

serve as an effective introduction to the story of the flood, with

and its

punishment, and mercy. A carefully prepared diagram of the two roads and the connecting by-paths, drawn of

lesson

divine justice,

upon the blackboard, may serve to make the para'de concrete and it indelibly upon the minds of the children. V. 3. Each l;rings a sacrifice of his own calling, Cain of the produce of his belds, and .liel of the firstlings of his sheep. That Abel's sacrifice is accepted and Cain's is not, is, of course, due to the nomad standpoint from which tlie story was written, that the life of the shepherd is more natural, better and more pleasing to God than that of the farmer, and consequently the shepherd's sacrifice is to impress

better

than the

farmer's.

Various answers have sacrifice

l)een

the product of

sacrifice gladly, while Cain's

promi.scuously, solutely

given to the question, wh' was .Xbel's

God and Caii.i's not? They are, of fancy. The customary answer is that Abel

pleasing to

while

no basis

in

course,

all

oft'ered his

was given grudgingly, or that Cain gave There is, of course, abhis best.

Abel gave the

Biblical

story

itself

for

any such

justifi-

cation.

V.

7.

As every one knows,

printing

is

a

comparatively modern

Before it all books were copied by hand. In consequence not only were books, or rather manuscripts, rare and precious, b,ut they were also quite likely to contain many errors, due to inexact copying or other causes. Even today in copying we frequently omit a letter or misread a word or o^-erlook an entire sentence, and thus misinvention.