Torah Study Blog

According to biblical legend, the first homicide of mankind happened in just the first generation after Adam and Eve. The story tells us that, because of jealousy, Cain killed his brother Abel. And God told Cain, “your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10).

There is a notion that bloodguilt pollutes the land. In 2 Samuel we are told about a time when there was a 3-year famine in the land. David asked God why the famine persisted, and God told David it was because of the bloodguilt associated with the innocent blood spilt by David’s predecessor, Saul, which had not been avenged (2 Samuel 21:1-1).

Our ancestors saw bloodguilt as a real thing. When blood is spilt wrongfully, something must happen. It is a very serious situation. In biblical times, there was a concept of a blood-avenger. If a member of your family was murdered, another one of your family members was assigned the title of blood-avenger, whose job it was to track down the murderer and, “The blood-avenger himself shall put the murderer to death; it is he who shall put him to death upon encounter” (Numbers 35:19).

This age-old concept reflects a human feeling that resonates with us today. For example, the heinous murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has led to protests for justice around the world. There is blood in the land, and we clamor for this wrong to be set right.

But what about when a death is accidental? The Torah portion for this week comes from the book of Deuteronomy and one of the topics it addresses is the situation when a person is killed accidently.

The way the role of the blood-avenger is described could create a Catch-22, because the family of the deceased is expected to exact revenge. But, if the original murder was an accident, is the next death supposed to be revenged, too? How does the bloodshed stop? It is a real, human response to try to exact revenge. But, in the case of an accidental murder, a civilized society cannot have people killing each other out of vengeance. At a time when there was no established police force, the Torah provided an option; one that also provided a form of societal control. The Torah allows that in the case of, “one who has killed another unwittingly,” that accidental murderer may flee to a city of refuge and live (Deuteronomy 19:3-5).

Scholars believe that these cities of refuge existed, but all we know about how they operated is that they were administered by people of the Levitical, or priestly, tribe. When we come across concepts in the Torah that are not detailed, scholars believe that no detail was necessary for the people who lived at the time of the writing. Those people knew what the city of refuge was and who would have been there.

There is one more detail that we do know: The people living in the city of refuge were allowed to leave the city when the High Priest died (of natural causes). This is the only time in the Torah when the death of someone completely unrelated to the situation, in this case the High Priest, has an impact.

Rabbi Jaech led us on an exploration of why the death of the High Priest was enough to atone for the bloodguilt.

The word atonement, kaphir in Hebrew, comes from the same root as the word we use for our holiday of Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement. It is a time when we ask those who we have wronged to forgive us. Although the death of the High Priest does not indicate atonement on the part of the actual murderer, his death alone erases the sentence. The High Priest has a special relationship with God, and his death atones for sins.

This will have resonance for anyone familiar with Christian scripture that says the death of Jesus atones for the sins of his people. The burden of vengeance, of being assigned the job of blood-avenger, is precisely the thing that Jesus ended. He removed the obligation of taking revenge. A passage in the Christian book of Romans says, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

Medieval commentators debated why they believed the death of the High Priest gave freedom to the accidental murderer: Ibn Ezra stated that it must have been the fault of the High Priest that his people became so sinful that one killed another – even if it was an accidental murder – therefore his own death would result in a reset. Hizkuni stated that, if the murderer had gone free before the death of the High Priest, people would have accused the High Priest of letting a killer loose in the community – so freedom would have had to wait until the High Priest’s death. Arbarbanel stated that the death of the High Priest would have reminded the community of their own mortality; causing them to have forgiveness in their hearts.

Rabbi Jaech, in a more modern take, pointed out that, by the time the passage in the book of Romans came about, Jews were living under Roman law and had lost their right to seek their own revenge.

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter