Atone for Your people Israel that You have redeemed.[2]
Chazal[3] parse this pasuk, and see separate references to two groups. “Your people Israel,” they say, refers to the living; “That you have redeemed,” to the dead. We must ask why the living require atonement? Moreover, the dead, we would think, require neither atonement nor redemption.
We can explain in two different ways, one examining the plain sense of the text, and the other taking into account a deeper, more hidden level of understanding it.
First, according to the plain meaning, our parshah speaks of the great value of levaya/accompanying a person for a while on his journey. Chazal[4] imply that such accompaniment provides protection from danger for both the traveler and his companion. Had someone accompanied the murder victim out of the city, he would have not met any harm.
Who was to blame? It might have been the dead, i.e. the victim himself! Had he not kept his plans to himself, someone would have come forward to accompany him. By not announcing his intentions, he caused his own death – and requires atonement for the shedding of his own blood! (His death is called “redemption,” because death releases a person from the constant struggle with the yetzer hora.)
It might be the case, however, that it never even occurred to the victim that he should have sought levaya. He might have been completely unaware of its protective nature. Perhaps the rabbanim of the city had failed to teach and to emphasize its importance. If that was the case, then the living – the inhabitants of the city – require kapparah for not properly educating everyone about this important practice.
Alternatively, we can detect a second approach to our parshah by noting its juxtaposition to what precedes it: “When you besiege a city for many days to wage war against it…do not destroy its trees.”[5] The city might be an allusion to the individual, in the same manner as the “small city, and few people in it, and a great king comes against it.”[6] This is interpreted as an allusion to the constant besieging of a person by the yetzer hora. Similarly, here in our section of Devarim, the city may represent an individual taking strong measures against his own impulses. Wishing to rid himself of his weakness for comfort and pleasure, he besieges his own being. He attempts for long periods of time to deaden parts of himself through constant fasts, privation, and self-denial.
To such a person the Torah speaks, “Do not destroy its trees.”[7] Don’t damage the body. “Only a tree that know is not a food tree, it you may destroy.”[8] Only those things that are completely non-essential – things that are luxuries – you may rid yourself of.
You might counter that the gemara relates several stories about individuals who, as part of their repentance, practiced self-denial to the point of death. We should not learn from them; this is not the best way to go. Possibly, those individuals knew enough about themselves that there was no way back from their sin other than in extreme measures against the body. They do not serve as a general model.
This is the other message of our section. “If a corpse will be found…[and] it was not known who smote him.”[9] No one knows why he died. No one killed him! He died through his own ill-advised practice of abusing himself. Tragically, he was not aware of better ways to live. The townspeople had not broadcast proper conduct and behavior to the masses. They must all gather and perform the mitzvah of the decapitated heifer. They all need atonement – the living, and the one who died through his own actions. The living declare that their hands did not shed his blood – at least not directly.
That, however, does not acquit them. “Our eyes did not see.”[10] They must say that they were unaware of the way he was treating himself. Had they known, they would have intervened and reasoned with him. Furthermore, they were not aware of such conduct in general. If they had been, they would have taken steps to properly educate the community to stay away from practices of mortifying the flesh.
Even it that declaration is true, they still require atonement. People are obligated to learn – and to anticipate crucial needs of the community, even when they have no personal experience with them!
- Based on Meshivas Nafesh by R. Yochanan Luria (15th century) ↑
- Devarim 21:8 ↑
- Sifrei #210 ↑
- See Sotah 46b and Bava Metzia 86b ↑
- Devarim 20:19 ↑
- Koheles 9:14 ↑
- Devarim 20:19 ↑
- Devarim 20:20 ↑
- Devarim 21:1 ↑
- Devarim 21:7 ↑