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This week we conclude the Book of Bamidbar. In the second parsha of this week’s Torah portions of Mattos and Maasei we discuss the parsha of the accidental murderer. The Torah gives the right to relatives of a murder victim to kill someone who accidentally murders, but the murderer has the right to flee, even eventually with help of the courts, to a city of refuge. They must then live there, in security, until the kohen gadol, the high priest, passes away. The pasuk states, “The assembly shall rescue the murderer from the hand of the avenger of the blood, and the assembly shall return him to his city of refuge where he had fled; he shall dwell in it until the death of the kohen gadol, whom one had anointed with the sacred oil” (Bamidbar 35:25).
Rabbeinu Bachye gives three reasons why the accidental murderer can leave free from the city of refuge without any more threat to his life once the kohen gadol passes away:
“1. In Makkos 11a, Chaza”l darshans, extrapolates, the Torah makes the atonement of the accidental murderer dependent on the death of the kohen gadol because he atones for all the Jews. And he should have beseeched mercy on his generation [so that accidental murders would not occur] and he did not beseech [well enough] and behold a sin of murder occurred in his lifetime.
2. Furthermore, the death of the kohen gadol is a comfort to the relatives of the killed so that their hearts won’t be enflamed [with anger] and they won’t worry about him as much.
3. The Sifri on this pasuk darshans that because the kohen gadol is a reason for the Divine Presence to rest among the Jews to lengthen their days, and the killer is a reason to remove the Divine Presence from the Jews and shorten their days, and he is not worthy to stand around before the kohen gadol.”
(Click here for Hebrew text.)
According to the first and third reasons given by the Rabbeinu Bachye, the killer’s freedom is based on his right to go free. In the first reason it is because the death of the kohen gadol is an atonement, which erases his sin, just as a sin-offering atones for any other accidental sin. According to the third reason, the killer lost his right to live in any proximity of the kohen gadol, the one who brought down the Shechina to the Jewish People, because his actions, albeit unintentional, distanced the Shechina from the Jews. So he’s “jailed” separated from the kohen gadol; but when the kohen gadol passes away he is freed.
However, the second reason seems to be more about cause and effect based on the feelings of the relatives of the one who was killed. They, for some reason, are comforted and aren’t a threat to the killer once the kohen gadol dies, and therefore the killer can leave the city of refuge without any fear of revenge. But why is this? Why does the death of the kohen gadol calm the agitation of the relatives of the murder victim?
One might say that it is based on the first reason, that the relatives knew (which isn’t conclusive) that the kohen gadol should have davened harder, so that something like this would not have happen. Therefore his death is enough compensation for the death of their relative. And even though the actual killer is still alive, the kohen gadol’s death, he who had the underlying responsibility for the matter is enough of a comfort for them to move on in life.
However the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim (3:40), (which the Mossad HaRav Kook edition of Rabbeinu Bachye brings down in their footnotes) gives an entirely different reason: “His returning [back into society] is dependent on the death of the man who is the greatest of all people, and most beloved by all the Jews because this will quiet down the soul of the bereaved whose relative was killed. For this is the nature of mankind. Anyone who had a tragedy happen to him, if someone else tragically dies who is similar qualitatively or even more severe of a death than [his relative] there is comfort through that tragedy. And there is no worse tragic death by us then the death of the high priest (kohen gadol).”
Imagine, G-D forbid, someone accidentally backing up a car and running over a child. The victim’s father or brother, who are devastated, angry, and frustrated would have the right to to take revenge on the driver according to the Torah, in the days before Beis Hamikdash was destroyed. There were cities all across Israel and right on the other side of the Jordan River where the murderer could run to and live in a safe haven from the relatives, according to Torah law. These relatives live in sorrow over having lost a loved one whom they could have interacted with day in and day out, watch grow up, develop, and enjoy times together. All that erased because of an accident. Why would the death of the gadol hador, the spiritual leader of the generation, someone who the relatives might not have even met in their lives, make up for their close relatives death? Indeed, to the extent that they are comforted and feel enough solace that they won’t want to take revenge on the murderer anymore?
It would seem, as the Rambam says, that it is the nature of mankind that when a person who is a beloved leader of the generation, someone, who, even if one does not personally know, but was relied upon for guidance, support leadership, or knew that the world, or at least Torah Jewry was dependent on him, and he in essence supported the world on his shoulders, the tragedy of his death, even if it’s just out of old age, is so crushing that even the feelings of frustration and anger over the accidental murder of a child or parent is calmed down and put to rest, due to dealing with this new sad circumstance.
Hashem built into the psyche of a person to only be able to deal with one tragedy of equal or harsher weight one at a time. Once another tragedy of equal quality or worse happens, then naturally the hard feelings from the previous tragedy cease, and one is forced to handle the subsequent tragedy (even though the sadness from the first might still be there). For this reason it makes sense that the accidental murderer may feel safe to leave the city of refuge once the kohen gadol, the spiritual leader of the generation, passes away, and the relatives of the victim now have to deal with their new emotional tragedy, which causes their ill will against their relative’s killer to calm down.