Cities of Refuge
Humanity’s capacity to build is spectacular. We have built towers, cities and civilizations. Yet the greatest construction projects often came at a high cost. Historically, the drive to create came at the expense of the the rights and well-being of individuals. An estimated 20,000 people died, mostly due to disease, in the effort to construct the Panama Canal. Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have died building the great wall of China.
When people pooled their efforts to advance a great cause, when they came together to achieve a great project, they often focused on the collective at the expense of the individual. They felt that in comparison to the collective, the individual was insignificant. Societies celebrated the great achievement, but, often, would ignore the individuals who may have been sacrificed for the sake of the collective.
Thus, as the Jews were about to enter the land of Israel, Moses addressed this very issue: the relationship between the individual and the communal in the land they were about to build.
In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminded the people of their history and the fundamentals of Torah. in this week’s portion, the portion of Shoftim, Moses discussed institutions they would create in the land of Israel, the priesthood, the monarchy, judiciary and the supreme court. And then, Moses repeated the commandant of the cities of refuge. This commandment was written twice in the first four books of the Torah and repeated twice more by Moses in the fifth book, because the cities of refuge represent the founding principle of the country the Jewish people were about to establish.
Moses tells us:
you shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the Lord, your God, is giving you to possess.
Prepare the road for yourself and divide into three parts the boundary of your land, which the Lord, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, and it will be for every killer to flee there…
As when a man goes with his fellow into the forest to chop wood, and his hand swings the ax to cut down the tree, and the iron flies off the handle, and it reaches his fellow, and he dies he shall flee to one of these cities, and live.
The Torah describes a “work accident”. Somebody was chopping wood in the forest and accidentally a bystander was killed. The Torah tells us that we cannot ignore the tragedy. We cannot allow life to go on as usual just because the person chopping the wood was doing so in the service of the community. The Torah tells us that the accidental murderer needs atonement, he needs to flee to exile in the city of refuge.
This commandment captures the foundation of the Jewish state. An individual cannot be sacrificed for the building of the collective. In fact the opposite is true. The state, the collective has legitimacy only to the extent that it is devoted to protecting the life and dignity of the individual. The Mitzvah of the cities of refuge is a reminder, that in the land of Israel, an individual is never sacrificed on the altar of the collective. The society which the Jewish people built in the land of Israel, represented the truth that every human being is created in the image of G-d.
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The city of refuge exists not only in the realm of space but also in the realm of time. The month of Elul, which precedes the Jewish New Year, is a metaphorical “city of refuge”. It is a time when we seek refuge from the distractions of the broader world, we engage in self reflection, introspection and self betterment.
When we think about the passing year, we will inevitably discover a discrepancy between the life we are living vs. the life we know we want to live. We have lofty goals and ideals, we want to live a life full of accomplishment and meaning, we want deep and rewarding relationships, we want to live by the values we believe in and cherish. Yet, the trouble begins with individual moments.
Somehow, sometimes, the general ideals and aspirations of our life do not infuse and inspire the individual moments, when we have to choose between investing in a meaningful relationship or pursuing something of no lasting value.
The “cities of refuge” remind us, that a collective is only as strong as the individuals who comprise it, and life is only as meaningful as daily, seemingly inconsequential, moments and decisions.
The month of Elul is the time we resolve, and we practice, to be mindful of the individual moments of our life. For the life we live, it’s joy and fulfillment, meaning and accomplishments, are determined by individual moments.