So after a couple of weeks of moving into a new house ...

I finally got to fix some torah.

Just did about half an amud concerning the birth of Cain and Abel (Kayin and Hevel) and their sacrifices. Boy is Kayin mad and when Hashem down't like his sacrifice - apparently it was because he just gave Hashem some rotten old veggies - whereas Hevel (which means puff/breath cos he wasn't around for very long) gave the choicest of his flock. Hmm. Still seems a little unfair.
ואל־קין ואל־מנחתו לא שׁעה - so apparently "unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect". Shâ‛âh in the BDB Definition:
1) to look at or to, regard, gaze at or about
1a) (Qal) to gaze at, regard, behold, look about
1b) (Hiphil) to look away, cause gaze to turn away
1c) (Hithpael) to look in dismay, gaze about (in anxiety).
Hashem clearly didn't like what He saw. Was it the offering or perhaps it wasn't because it says "unto Cain and..." i.e. He didn't have respect for Kayin not just his offering - He could see what Kayin was capable off and what kind of person he was - so not sure why the midrashim try to justify this by talking about the quality of the offering when a p'shat reading of the text could easily apply to the quality of the person. The bit that I finished on says ויאמר קין אל־הבל אחיו "And Cain spoke unto Abel his brother..." but it doesn't say what he said. Is there a missing bit of text - was it left out by a careless copyist once upon a time or was it deliberately removed. Was it never there? Did Hashem leave it out? We will never know. But it is rather abrupt and odd.
Rashi explains that 'He engaged him in argument and dispute in order to find a pretext to kill him. Concerning this there are Aggadaic expositions, but this is the plain explanation of the verse.' Did he need to do this? Couldn't he have just come up behind him and hit him with something? The Samaritan text, Vulgate and Septuagint says that he said 'Let's go out to the field'. Make sense but kind of dull. Better to imagine what might have been said. Whatever it was Hevel was fairly dumb to listen.
Anyway, we all know what happens next!