‘Vanity’) which HaShem accepted (as was evidenced by the fire which came down from heaven to consume it). Although Kayyin (his name means ‘possession,’ ‘acquisition’) had brought a Korbon before Hevel did, Kayyin’s Korbon was inferior and was not well-intentioned, and so was not accepted by HaShem, for HaShem looks to the heart. Although HaShem explained this to Kayyin, he was jealous of his brother and incited him to an argument. In the ensuing fight, Kayyin killed his brother.
As punishment, HaShem condemned Kayyin to exile: the earth did not give of its produce even though he worked the soil, and he had to wander from place to place to seek his needs. However, because Kayyin recognized the gravity of his sin and said that he repented from his terrible crime, HaShem told him that no one was authorized to kill him in revenge for the death of the childless Hevel, and He bestowed upon him a sign that reminded all that Kayyin was not then to be killed.
Kayyin had a son called Channoch, who, unlike his father, was not condemned to the life of a wanderer, and for him Kayyin built a town wherein he intended his son to be safe, and he called it Channoch.
Although each person had many children in the course of his very long life, the fact that the Torah tells us the names of particular people in those first generations of humanity is indicative of the general trend of Mankind at that time. Actually, the names listed are not only the personal names of the outstanding individuals of those times. In fact, the Torah reports them so that they should serve us more as indicators of the type of society, and of the kind of behaviour, that those individuals set as a trend and which was followed by the rest of humanity. Thus, the generation of Channoch (meaning ‘training, developing self-power’) was followed by that of Irrad (‘wild, rebelling, resisting’) which was then followed by the generation of Mechuyo’el (‘to extinguish, to do away with, godliness’). This downward trend continued with the generation of Mesusho’el (who sought their safety in ‘masses of people’ and who considered themselves no more under the authority of HaShem) and the generation led by Lemech (‘becoming more spiritually impoverished’).
The named children of Lemech, the descendants of Kayyin, and their generations, continued in their rebellion against HaShem’s ideal: Yovvol (‘producer’) who sought to turn Kayyin’s sentence of banishment from the soil and a life of wandering into something gainful, to minimize the punishment of exile, became a nomad shepherd and wealthy merchant. His brother Yuval (‘benefits from the produce of others’) was the one who first developed musical instruments and the arts (without actually producing anything tangible himself) and thus did his generation seek to satisfy man’s spiritual striving for things noble and godly with a superficial, merely aesthetic satisfaction. Another brother, Tuval-Kayyin (‘creates production’) became the first manufacturer of all kinds of metal implements (the murderer’s tools, too!) and, by joining Kayyin’s name to their own, the people of that time showed that they even admired his murderous deed, and Tuval-Kayyin’s sister’s name was Naamoh (‘physical beauty’). Thus the families who descended from Kayyin were determined to go along the path leading away from HaShem and spiritual betterment.
Another son was born to Oddom and Chavvoh. Realizing where Mankind was heading, she called him Shayss (‘foundation’) and so expressed the wish that this son ‘given by HaShem’ shall usher-in a better age. But the son of Shayss was called Enosh (‘suffering Mankind’) for by then HaShem’s Name was becoming forgotten. The people no longer sought to make connexion with HaShem through worshipping Him and through the mistaken notion that it was not permitted to approach HaShem directly, idolatry began. This generation of Enosh was followed by that of Kaynon (‘materialism’). This spiritually empty generation was followed by a generation which tried to bring back the ideals of godliness, the generation of Mahalal’el (‘praises to G-d’) but it was a generation of praises to G-d only and empty of any real godliness, and thus led to the next generation of Yerred (‘downward’). This was followed by the generation of Channoch II who was a great inventor of mechanical aids and at first was a leader of men. But spiritually he was unstable. He attempted to ‘train and develop’ himself to walk with HaShem, and, although his efforts were not consistent, he died a righteous man, but a recluse.
The people of the next generation, that of Mesushelach (‘divorced from the masses’) was no better than those that went before it, for which reason this righteous son of Channoch II had to withdraw from them, as had his father from his generation, and the next generation of Lemech II continued down the path of overall decline bringing the further ‘spiritual impoverishment’ of Mankind.
Lemech recognized this trend and named his son No’ach (‘movement come to rest’) and thus expressed the wish that Mankind cease to blunder downward but find its way again and ‘be comforted’ from its unhappiness. But the people themselves were not of that mind. Instead of utilizing their extraordinary longevity for the good, their lives had become one long degeneration of moral decay, and this great longevity, decreed HaShem, shall therefore be taken away from man. These first generations of Mankind, endowed with such great potential, used their lives only to pursue pleasures — no thought was given to the main purpose of life: the spiritual side of man and his duties to HaShem. Sadly, the greater their potential, the greater was its misuse. Indeed, the race of giants that lived then (and for some time later, too) with their supernatural abilities, were of the worst offenders against HaShem and against Mankind.
When HaShem saw that the children of man had chosen to use their free will only to do evil one to the other, He was greatly saddened. Despite the warnings and punishments that HaShem sent, including local floods and famine, the children of man continued to corrupt the world that HaShem had created and which He had seen was “very good.” HaShem saw then how, despite the occasional awakening of conscience and some repentance, the human race was not capable any more to lift itself out of its moral decline. Instead of this world being a place which Mankind would make into a fitting abode for the Divine Presence, as HaShem had intended, it had become steeped in immorality and, worst of all, in violence. The whole world, led by the human race, had sunk so low that it would be unfair to expect any real improvement any more. HaShem then decided that He would eradicate from the face of the earth the human beings that were there, together with all those living creatures which shared man’s environment and which also had become polluted and had corrupted their way.
But No’ach was righteous and HaShem was pleased with him.
