Eden, Cain, and Ableism at the Door
by Angela Vierling-Claassen
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The first chapters of Genesis introduce us to three words that shape human purpose: avodah (service), shmirah (watching), and sha’ah (seeing). Each one carries meaning for people with disabilities, and together they can show us something about how we can live in an ableist world.
Care and Watching in the Garden: Genesis 2:15
The Torah starts by telling the story of creation, and moves on to the garden called Eden. That brings us to Genesis 2:15 which says, “God settled the Human in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it.” The words used are avodah (till) and shmirah (tend).
The Hebrew word avodah means more than “till.” It can mean work, labor, service, or worship. But avodah is human work, and it is quite different from God’s work of melachah, which is about creating and transforming. On the seventh day, God stopped creating. This shows us the importance of pausing from altering the world around us, and instead focusing on care and relationships, whether with the soil or with other people.
The next Hebrew word in 2:15 is shmirah. This word means more than “tend.” Shmirah means watching, guarding, and attending. It means protective attentiveness. So we need to watch out for the earth and each other.
Our purpose as humans is not to create more, but to serve and carefully watch over what already exists. True meaning is not found in productivity, but in our ability to pay attention and to care.
We thus are given a beautiful vision of the garden of Eden, in which those of us that are disabled can flourish. We serve and attend, maintain and protect, care and guard. Made of soil and breath, our calling is not endless transformation, but avodah and shmirah -- mutual protective care. As people with disabilities, we are often excluded from capitalist measures of “value,” but the Torah insists that care-work, interdependence, and protective attention are our true vocation, and they are available to all.
Seeing and Refusal to See: Genesis 4:4-7
Later, the humans are kicked out of Eden and must continue their service and watchfulness elsewhere. A new generation is born -- Cain and Abel. These siblings grow up, choose how they want to serve and watch, and they both bring their offerings before God.
Abel’s gift is noticed, but Cain’s is not: “God paid heed (sha’ah) to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his offering God did not pay heed. Cain was very distressed and his face fell.” (Gen. 4:4-5).
The biblical Hebrew meaning of “paying heed” (sha’ah) has many layers. It can mean turning toward, gazing at, seeing, noticing, or regarding with favor. God does not bestow this validating gaze on Cain.
Cain was “very distressed.” The Hebrew names his distress as vayichar, that Cain burned. This is a new feeling for humans in the Torah. It could be anger, pointing outward toward God or Abel, or it could be shame, which points inward. Some people see it as jealousy.
Cain burns with this new emotion, and it crushes him. Cain’s face falls. He is not mobilized for change, but is consumed by the burning. Disabled people recognize the collapse that Cain endures. We are used to being unseen and ignored, and sometimes our anger, shame, or disappointment turns inward. We blame ourselves, or believe it’s better not to be seen. We apologize, or we try hard to do better until we exhaust ourselves.
God does notice that something is wrong. God says to Cain: “Why are you burning and why did your face fall? If you do right, you will rise. But if you do not, sin crouches at the doorway; its desire is for you, yet you can master it” (Gen. 4:6-7).
There is much to unpack in this lecture from God, but at the moment the important thing is that Cain doesn’t seem to listen. After all, God did not notice Cain’s offering, and then when God did notice that Cain was upset, God asked what was wrong but did not listen for an answer.
When people feel that society does not truly see them, they can internalize that invisibility. Ableism works by denying sha’ah. We don’t regard disabled lives as worthy or even regard them at all.
Perhaps God’s lecture holds the wisdom we need. God says that if you make good choices, good things will happen. That seems simplistic to me. After all, our efforts as disabled people have been repeatedly ignored, hurting those with multiple marginalized identities the hardest.
God continues, “If you don’t do good, sin crouches at the doorway.” Here, remember the concept of sin in Jewish teaching is really “missing the mark.” So Cain might fall short in doing the jobs that God gave humans. But this sin, this mistake, is crouching at the threshold, ready to attack. It is an animal that wants to sink its teeth into Cain.
For the disabled, it is ableism that crouches at our doorways. It is a sin, but it is not our sin. It is a societal sin, like racism or sexism, and it is always ready to pounce. It will attack by ignoring us, infantilizing us, or devaluing us..
Cain is told that he has the power to stop the attack, so perhaps we do too. At first glance, though, we do not see any guidance about how to stop it. But looking closer, there is hidden guidance here. God asks Cain: “Why are you angry? Why has your face fallen?” It is no accident that God asks Cain twice: The double question cracks open a space, an invitation. God is not interrogating Cain, but beckoning him toward speech.
Earlier I asserted that God did not wait for an answer from Cain. With this rereading, it is actually Cain’s silence that brings on the lecture, giving guidance about how to master the ableism lurking on the threshold. We must do what Cain did not: articulate the hurt, cry out, ask for help.
“Am I the one who watches over my brother?”: Genesis 4:8-9
In the first tragedy, Cain killed his brother. In Gen. 4:9, God asks, “Where is your brother Abel?” and Cain says, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
This is a famous question, but it might be better translated as, “Am I the one who watches over my brother?” Humanity’s purposes in Eden were to serve and watch (shmirah), and now Cain rejects this responsibility. The result is further alienation, wandering, and disconnection.
There’s a mirror here: Cain feels unseen by God, and then Cain refuses to see his brother. Divine non-attention (or Cain’s perception of it) breeds human non-attention. For people with disabilities, there is a terrible parallel. The world often refuses to acknowledge us and sees our offerings as inferior. And when we burn with anger or shame, we are told to master our own crouching beasts.
Clearly, we need to have a way to address our pain. When society devalues us, our pain can burn us from the inside out. We are left fighting the emotional fires of anger, resentment, grief, and shame, and if no one watches over us, we can be entirely consumed.
We need to speak our pain out loud. Acknowledging and wrestling with the ways we have been overlooked can give us the connection we need to live by sha’ah and shmirah, turning our faces toward one another and guarding each other’s lives. When we shout our social injuries from the rooftops, we may be able to take up each other's causes and live by avodah, the holy work of caring for each other.
Disability justice is exactly this practice: insisting on attention, becoming guardians for one another, caring for each other. When we connect with the disabled community, we can hear stories that reflect our own traumas and joys back to us. We also get to listen and learn about a range of new experiences that we never imagined. That holy work enables us to hold protective space and to deeply see the beauty of each other's faces, minds, bodies. Then we can labor in caring service when we are able, and receive that service when we need it. As R. Tarfon said, “There is no chance we can finish this work, but neither can we drop it and pretend we do not need it” (heavily paraphrased from Pirkei Avot 2:16).
Angela Vierling-Classen (she/her) is a queer disability activist, a mother of teenagers, and a Jew-by-choice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She started life with ADHD and now lives with progressive multiple sclerosis which brings fatigue, cognitive changes, mobility challenges, and more.
Angela is COVID-cautious and passionate about raising awareness of airborne and disabling illness. She is excited these days about insects and lichen. She has a number of failed terrariums, but will probably try again. She has a fierce belief that every bodymind is beautiful.
