This paper examines the Cain and Abel narrative as a foundational text for conceptualizing punishment for unintentional homicide. It develops a rabbinic interpretive hypothesis: that Cain did not act with full murderous intent, since no human had previously been killed and the lethal consequences of violence were unknown to him. Rabbinic literature uses this premise to address a core tension — Cain commits homicide yet escapes death, instead receiving divine protection and exile. Rather than treating this as inconsistency, rabbinic interpretation transforms it into a legal distinction between intentional and unintentional killing, making Cain the prototype of the unintentional murderer. This tradition links Cain's exile to the biblical cities of refuge, reframing his wandering as paradigmatic sanctuary. The paper concludes by tracing this paradigm in modern thought, particularly Levinas' reading of the West as a juridical space oriented toward integration and protection rather than purely punitive ends.