October 7th and the First Murder

Originally published on Gimme Some Torah by Rabbi Eli Garfinkel on October 7, 2026.

Memorials at the site of the Nova Music Festival (CCA-SA 4.0)

Bereshit/Genesis 4:10

וַיֹּאמֶר מֶה עָשִׂיתָ קוֹל דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ צֹעֲקִים אֵלַי מִן־הָאֲדָמָה׃

Then [God] said, “What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!

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On this third anniversary of October 7th, it is appropriate to look to the weekly Torah portion for succor or at least some wisdom. This week’s sedra contains not only the story of Creation but also the story of the human race’s first murder. Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, murders his brother Abel out of envy.

After the attack, God says to Cain, “What have you done? Hark, the blood of your brother cries out to Me from the ground!” The word for blood in the original Hebrew verse is in the plural, דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ (d’mei aḥiḥa, the “bloods” of your brother). Why is the word for blood in the plural when the singular, דַּם (dam), would do just as well? Here is the explanation given by Midrash Tanḥuma:

How did he kill him? He inflicted numerous bruises upon his body with a stone. He smote him over his entire body, from his hands and feet to his throat, for he had no way of knowing from where his soul would depart…The Holy One, blessed be He, replied immediately: What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries unto Me (Gen. 4:10). This verse indicates that he inflected numerous wounds upon Abel.

The midrash is teaching us that Cain flew into an envious, mindless rage. He wanted to kill Abel, but he didn’t know how to do it, so he made wounds all over his body. We are led to feel pity for Cain, not anger. God set him up to fail by favoring Abel’s sacrifice. Moreover, no one ever told Cain that murder is wrong. Rather than kill him, God mercifully sentences Cain to live a life of nomadic wandering.

At first, I was planning to compare Cain to the terrorists who slaughtered 1,200 innocent men, women, and children on October 7th three years ago. But then I realized that those terrorists have nothing in common with Cain.

Cain’s murder was committed in a haze of emotional anguish. He did not have a track record of hating Abel. He did not announce his desire to annihilate his brother, nor did he plan it. Afterward, he clearly feels ashamed of what he did.

That is certainly not the case with the Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians who stormed into Israel on October 7th. They had a track record of genocidal hatred against the Jewish people and continue to build it. They have announced their desire to eliminate each and every one of us more times than I care to count. They are not ashamed of what they did; to the contrary, they are extremely proud of it. (I’m especially thinking about the beast who called his parents and gleefully told them, ‘I killed two Jews with my bare hands!’”

And what of the innocent Palestinians who died in Israel’s counterattacks? Not a single one of those deaths was desired or planned. If the IDF were able to target only the culprits with no collateral damage, it would do so. But even an oncologist can’t do that. Killing cancer often requires the physician to kill healthy tissue, too.

Unfortunately, Hamas used the innocent Palestinians as human shields and did not allow them to take shelter in their labyrinth of tunnels and bunkers. As for pride, I can say confidently that virtually no Jew is proud that innocent civilians perished—we view war as sometimes necessary but never good.

In case I haven’t made myself crystal clear, I am a proud Zionist. The word means “one who wants the Jews to have sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.” There will be thousands of so-called “antizionist” demonstrations today, led by people who insist that there is a difference between antizionism and anti-Jewish hatred. There is not. It is neither possible nor psychologically normal to love the world’s Jews but hate the country that protects half of them.

October 7th, 2023 was the equivalent of 9/11 for the Jewish people. Actually, it was the proportional equivalent of sixteen 9/11 attacks. It was a wake up for all of us and reminded us that an astounding number of people hate Jews with a dangerous fervor. Anti-Jewish, genocidal murder did not disappear after the Holocaust; it merely found a deep tunnel in which to hide. It has crawled out of that tunnel.

In the years that followed that dark day, we found out who would hide us and who would not. We found out what institutions value our safety and which do not. We will neither forget nor forgive the terrorists, their civilian collaborators, or their cheerleaders. Nor will we forgive governments and parties who have sided against us. I’m looking at you, leaders of Ireland and Spain. I’m looking at you, Green Party of the United Kingdom.

The world has crossed the Rubicon, and every human must decide, “Am I on the side of Israel and the Jewish people, or am I on the side of bloodthirsty, soulless monsters?”

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