My grandmother is an avid reader, and she has developed an interesting habit: she’s always in the middle of two books at a time. Her favorite genre is mystery novels, and she is always reading about some murder or crime to be solved by the end of the book. But at nights, she pulls out her second book, always something lighter to ease her mind and prevent her from having nightmares about the crime in which she is engrossed.
I told my Bubbie this week that the very first murder mystery appears at the end of our parsha:
A corpse is found in the land of Israel between two cities. “V’lo nodah mee heekahu”- it murderer’s identity is unknown.
The Torah proposes a surprising procedure: the ziknei ha’ir- the wise, elders of the city come forward and proclaim their innocence: “yadeinu lo shafcha es hadam hazeh, v’eineninu lo rau.” The Kohanim and Leviim come forward and pray for forgiveness “Kaper l’amch Yisroel”.
Of course the Torah is not suggesting that the city elders or Kohanim are murderous, but nonetheless they and the entire city are being held accountable. Rashi explains they are blamed for their lack of hospitality. Surely, they failed to properly escort the victim away from the city. Had they the care to chaperone him until he would safely find his way, this never would have happened, and the Torah holds the city’s leadership responsible for the culture which bred this sin. The Ibn Ezra offers a slightly different suggestion: the city’s occupants are not accountable for a random act of murder. But what goes around comes around; if G-d allowed this tragedy to take place near this town, clearly the city has done something wrong which warrants atonement.
Many of us are familiar with these or similar explanations. But I came across a jarring question this week that challenges this entire school of thought. (See Rambam’s approach quoted in Ramban. I assume he was motivated by this question.)
The city elders may be acknowledging their minimal involvement in the loss of this man. They may be repenting for some underlying, unknown previous sin which brought about this tragedy. But why does the Torah limit the procedure to a murder mystery: asher “lo nodah mee hee’kahu”? What relevance does the murderer’s identity serve? Say for example that they could check the film and see that this man was killed by a bandit in the dessert. Perhaps they can even catch the guy and hold him accountable.
Should they not still feel at fault for neglecting their responsibility to escort the man out of the city? Should they not be concerned or at least consider the significance of G-d allowing such a tragedy to take place in their midst? Why is the procedure done only for the mysterious murder? Why not have it done for every murder!
Rabbi Yehuda Leib Chasman explains that when a person knows all the information, the response comes naturally. The public outcry loudens when we have a picture or video of what happened. If we know for a fact that the man was not escorted and was killed because of it, the people would feel bad and the leaders would feel accountable. It is when there is an unknown, explains Rav Chasman, that people begin to shirk responsibility. If we are not sure exactly what happened, then we can make excuses. With nothing to point our finger at, we don’t feel as accountable.
In that case, says the Torah, we need an eglah arufah. We need a reminder that in G-d’s eyes, the responsibility remains despite any unknowns.
As we proceed through the month of Elul and approach the Yomim Noraim, we begin the process of thinking about our lives. Surely, each of us can identify some of our objectively bad behaviors, and these are the low hanging fruit of the teshuva process. But we do not live in a world of black and white. Most of the things we do fall in the gray area, subject to our interpretations, explanations, and justifications. As we go through our typical days, weeks, months, and years, it’s not easy to spot sin among these uncertainties. My grandmother puts down her mystery novels at the end of each day to direct her attention elsewhere, but that is not how we should deal with the questionable acts that make up our lives. At the end of the year, let us make sure we are not pushing aside the Torah’s murder mystery, as we use the lessons of the Eglah Arufah to inspire us to focus on the gray areas of our lives.
(Source for the Torah portion of this post http://divreichaim.blogspot.com/2013/08/why-no-eglah-arudah-after-murderer-is.html )
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