דברים פרק יט

Devarim Chapter 19: The Cities of Refuge and the Regulation of Murder

The Context: Public Mitzvot in Sefer Devarim

This chapter is part of the series of mitzvot like the whole main book of Devarim called Mishneh Torah — this list of mitzvot. If we group them together in certain groupings, in the most general sense the entirety of what is read in parashat Shoftim is the public mitzvot, mitzvot of the public order. Which means the structure of the laws, the structure of the courts, the structure of the leadership, the people who are in charge of the laws, are in charge of the people. So not so much the specific laws but the structure of the laws, the structure of the justice and of the entire society.

So here in chapter 19 we get to a very specific law and it’s framed in a very specific way. The general category that these laws belong in is the laws of murder.

Murder as a Primary and Foundational Law

Now murder is one of the most primary laws, one of the first laws in a certain sense, of course. It’s one of the Aseret HaDibrot [Ten Commandments], which already should show us that this is a very primary law, a very basic law. It’s mentioned right away in parashat Mishpatim, many times we have murder as one of the primary things.

But there’s something more complicated with it. Just murder, of course, is kind of simple. But there are complications because murder is not only the first law as in the first moral law, what a person shouldn’t do. It’s also one of the first basis of a city. A city is the kind of place, a civilization, place where people live, a state is where murder is taken care of, where violence is controlled, where there’s a law to take care of the violence.

The Complexity of Accidental Murder

Now there’s murder, premeditated murder, where someone murders someone, okay. We have the laws that are going to be mostly about the punishment of that murder. What happens if we can’t find the murderer, as we’ll talk about.

But then there’s also non-premeditated murder, what we call manslaughter. Sometimes people get killed whether by mistake, whether by negligence, whether by some accident. There’s a variety of levels of premeditation of intent in murder and that is also something that needs to be taken care of.

Why Accidental Murder Must Be Addressed

We cannot allow — not only can we not allow deliberate murder — a city is something, the whole point of a city, you have some self-defense, you have some level of people protecting each other. So we have to protect each other also from accidental murder.

If someone’s moral system or someone’s political system only cares about deliberate murder and says well, it’s a mistake, you know, it’s all God that did it and so on, that is incorrect. Of course one of the first times that it mentions it, it talks about how we say God did it or nature did it. It happened by itself. It’s not describable to a person. But nevertheless there needs to be some solution for this. There needs to be some way to take care of this problem.

Of course, the fact there’s a solution or maybe some kind of a punishment even for someone that causes death through negligence or through non-intentional murder is also that people will be much more careful. In other words, we create this whole system. Everyone knows the system of a society like the job of the Chachamim [Sages] is to make mishmeret l’mishmarti [safeguards for safeguards] — to create different kinds of gates around the law.

So the biggest law that needs gates around it is the law of murder and there’s literal gates like we learn about a gate that you create so people shouldn’t fall off your roof. That’s a gate around the law of murder and the only reason we need such gates and things like that, people take care of safety, is because even accidental murder gets taken very seriously.

From Private Vengeance to Regulated Justice

So now the primary way in which — I told you I talked about accidental murder being taken seriously and now it goes one level more. One level more is that in the primordial law and the law before there is systems of courts that take what we call nowadays the monopoly of violence and take the entire monopoly and dispense justice entirely. There is some sort of personal law, some sort of law of vengeance really, but it’s not just vengeance as in the wild sense.

This is what the law, the primary law, which is the law of murder, the prohibition of murder is based on. It’s based on the fact that people have relatives, people have other people who care about them, who are in some kind of a covenant with them. And if someone murders one of my people I will murder him or even I will murder one of his people. That’s the law of war. That’s the basic thing.

Now cities are about regulating even this, right? So originally we have: You murder me, even by mistake, I murder you or my next of kin, the people responsible for me, the people who I promised to protect, who are promised to protect me will murder you.

Now when there’s a city which has a law justice, the courts and so on, they’re trying to take over this also. So the Torah and the first step is trying to take over this privatized justice, so to speak, this law of vengeance to somehow regulate it, to begin to regulate it.

The Law of Arei Miklat (Cities of Refuge)

So one of the first laws we got about this is the law of Arei Miklat [Cities of Refuge], which is that we set up specific cities where someone who murdered someone unintentionally, or we’ll see in the next part of this chapter the complication about that, he will go to that city and that city will protect him. It’s sort of a sanctuary city, right? A city where the people who broke the law in that sense are protected.

The Dual Nature: Protection and Punishment

And they’re not just protected. It’s not just a protection like, okay, we allowed accidental murders. So it must be understood as the society, the more formalized law of justice taking ownership over this and they will take care. In some sense just the fact that he has to live in that city is already some kind of punishment, right? It’s a kind of exile or banishment or prison. He has to be imprisoned in that, although the Torah doesn’t frame it that way.

The Torah frames it as saving the murderer or the accidental murderer, the manslaughterer from being killed by the Goel HaDam [blood avenger], by the person who’s avenging the blood. It can also, in Chazal [the Sages], definitely read it as a punishment in itself. And that’s because I think that’s the goal of this kind of thing.

But also we have to imagine that this city is not just magic that it protects them — there’s some kind of organization where they take care of finding out what’s going to happen and so on.

Who Is Allowed to Go to the City of Refuge

And we see when the Torah gives this law, it also gives details of who is allowed to go to it.

So now one more step we have to add to this is that the whole Sefer Mishneh Torah [Book of Deuteronomy] is planning for the people going into Eretz Canaan, Eretz Yisrael. But not only going into but also eventually expanding their politics, expanding their state. Expanding by conquering more land, by just creating bigger cities and so on. And therefore there’s specific provisions in the laws for when this will be expanded, when this will be taken over more and what will happen in that. This was very explicitly made in Parashat V’etchanan. And here we have it in a more simple sense.

The Establishment of Three Cities

So what we have is the law when it says: When Hashem will cut off the nations who you are fighting with and you will take over their cities, then you will separate three cities. And also you’ll prepare the way to these three cities. You will divide into thirds the limits, the borders of your land. And anyone, any murderer will escape, will flee to these three cities.

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that now you have a free pass for murder. That was not the point of this law. The point of this law was to regulate accidental murder, right? Or, yeah, accidental murder.

So we have a whole parsha explaining who will be allowed to go to this city. So as I said, first it gives you the law with three cities. And, of course, this is according to how great or how large your state is. You will have a third. So it doesn’t give like an absolute measure. It doesn’t tell you exactly how far. Obviously, the point is that in each third of the country — which maybe these were like states within the country — like each state or each part should have one of these cities where their [accidental killers] should go.

Defining Who Qualifies for Refuge

But who should go there? Not just any murderer. Only whoever hits or kills, right? Hurts his friend bivli da’at [without intention]. Da’at doesn’t mean knowledge, right? It means intention.

The Beautiful Expression: “He Does Not Hate Him from Yesterday”

And the way to express this very beautifully: He does not hate him from yesterday. He’s not a hater, right? That’s another way of saying premeditated murder, right? If someone is in a fight with someone, he’s a hater from the day before, the day before that, that means he planned the murder. He didn’t plan it.

The Example: The Axe in the Forest

So that’s one way. Someone kills someone unknowingly, unwittingly. Or there’s another way in which we could know that it was not intentional. Sometimes someone goes in the woods to cut down trees. And his hand somehow slips from the axe he’s holding to cut the wood. And the metal will fly and find his friend, right? Kill his friend accidentally.

So that we know it’s not — nobody — I mean, there’s like a conspiracy. If he’s just chopping wood and it was an accident, a work accident where his axe flew into his friend’s head and killed him. These are the people. This was the person who will go to this city.

The Reason for the Cities: Protecting from the Goel HaDam

And the person, as in the style of this book and some other works in other ways, repeats itself. Why we need the city? Because the Goel HaDam, the avenger of the blood will chase him. Because his heart will be — that’s the way of saying he will be upset, right? He will be mad and he will be correct, right? And he will achieve him. He will catch him. Because the way will be far.

But he does not deserve, he does not have the law of death. Because the law of death is only for someone who is a sonei [hater], right? Who is premeditated. But this person does not hate him from yesterday. Therefore he does not deserve death. Therefore I’m telling you to separate these three cities.

Why Specifically Three Cities

And specifically three. If there’s only one, you still might not have enough time. The Goel HaDam might still find you. So you need to have three. So there’s always a chance of the person escaping to them.

Provision for Expansion: Adding Three More Cities

And therefore, if Hashem will give you even — make your land even bigger — and he will give you the entire land. And as the Torah never forgets to repeat here: Why will he get the entire land? Because you will do the mitzvah. That will give you success in your wars and so on. And you will love God.

Why do we need the city? Because the Goel HaDam [the avenger of the blood] will chase him, because his heart — that’s the way of saying he will be upset, right, he will be mad, and he will be correct, right — and he will achieve him, he will catch him, because the way will be far. But he does not deserve, he does not have the law of death, because the law of death is only for someone who is a sone [one who hated beforehand], right, who is premeditated, but this person does not hate him from yesterday. Therefore he does not deserve death.

Therefore I am telling you to separate these three cities, and specifically three. If there’s only one, you still might not have enough time, the Goel HaDam might still find you, so you need to have three, so there’s always a chance of the person escaping to them.

Expansion of the Land and Additional Cities

And therefore, if Hashem will give you even, make your land even bigger, and he will give you the entire land — and as the Torah never forgets to repeat here, why will he get the entire land? Because he will do the mitzvah, that will give you success in your wars, and so on, and you will love God, and he will give you success — then you will have a bigger place, then you will add another three cities, so even in your expanded land, you still have this space.

And this very clearly shows us how Ir Miklat [city of refuge] is like part of the basis of building a city, of building a state. You want to make it bigger, you have to make in the bigger place these Arei Miklat [cities of refuge], so that the law of murder, including this unintentional murder, including the regulation of the punishment of the vengeance over unintentional murder should be regulated.

Preventing Innocent Bloodshed

And as it finishes, so that clean blood, dam naki [innocent blood], unguiltless blood should not be spilled in your land, which Hashem gives you, and then you will have blood on you, there will be blood guilt on you, if you allow murder. And part of allowing murder, you see there, we’re at step three, right? Besides for, of course, just murder happening is already something that the land, in some sense, has to atone for. But if you will now allow the murder of the person who murdered unintentionally, and that will not be justified, then again, you will have to, you will have the murder, the blood guilt on you. Okay?

The Case of Premeditated Murder

Now, we have the opposite. But if someone is a sone [hater], he did plan, he planned, he, how do you say, he ambushed him, right? And he stood on him, he ambushed someone and he killed him, and that person thinks he’s going to escape, then, we do not allow him. The elders of his city will send, his city, right, the original city where he came from, will take him from there, and they will give him to the hands of the Goel HaDam and kill him.

So here, we still have the Goel HaDam as the one avenging the death, even when it was premeditated, even was purposeful murder, it’s the Goel HaDam killing him. The point is that if the person is, the death is just, have been an accident, then we allow the Ir Miklat to protect you. Otherwise, we don’t allow it, and we will take you out and return you to the original law, which is that the Goel HaDam is allowed to kill you.

No Compassion for the Intentional Murderer

And the pasuk finishes, lo tachos einecha [do not have compassion], do not have compassion of this, because for the same reason, you need to clean, u’vi’arta [and you shall purge], the guilt, the clean, the guiltless blood needs to be, the guiltless blood spilled, dam here means not blood literally, the guilt of the blood, guilt of pure blood, which was spilled in vain and spilled unjustifiedly, that has to be cleaned, and that is part of the, that is what a good society is.

Sometimes people think that giving leniency to murder is something nice. The Torah does not seem to think that, it’s the opposite. Lo tachos einecha — we do have, we do have rachmanus [compassion], right, in other words, we do have rachmanus, we do have compassion on the person who did it accidentally, but we do not have compassion on the person who did it purposefully. Okay?

So that’s one law about creating the cities, and each area, each sort of, each province has to have one, at least one city, in which the Goel HaDam, for the, Ir Miklat.

The Prohibition Against Moving Boundaries

Now we have another law, which is really about the organization of the city, interesting law, but I think that’s the, this is the context where it comes in. Lo tasig gvul re’acha [Do not move the borders of your friend] that the earlier generations, your predecessors have bordered, have created, like there’s a verb for bordering here, I don’t know how you would say it in English, asher gavlu [that they bordered], to shine him.

The point is that we have, there’s another one basic part of establishment of a society, right, this is my land, this is your land, there might be even like cities who have borders, and each city belongs to some family or to some people in some way, and these were established by the predecessors, by the ancestors, they have established these borders between cities.

The Importance of Established Borders

Sometimes someone thinks, oh let me change it around, let’s steal some land. It’s not just theft, right, it’s not just like land theft, there’s something more basic here. It’s you’re moving the borders that your ancestors have agreed on already, and that’s like the peace, the peace, the peace of a place is based on the fact that people have agreed on their borders. I live here, you live there, this is my plot, this is your plot. If people move it, that’s basically destroying the basic peace, not just like a one-new-story.

We’re very used to living in a place that has already peace, so we don’t realize this, but if you go in places where there’s less social order or less legal order, then you’ll realize that this is a very important thing. And therefore right later we’ll see, there’s a special kelala [curse], there’s a curse, a damnation for people who masig gvul [move boundaries], so this is sometimes hard to notice, so this is the law, we should not do that.

The Laws of Witnesses

One more, and now we’re back to general, the general order of justice, that’s the main last part of this chapter, and it’s the laws of witness, the laws of proof. How do we know that something happened? There’s always, whenever there’s a court, whenever there’s a judge, you have to know what happened, and here the Torah gives some limits to that.

The Requirement of Two or Three Witnesses

So do not allow one witness to stand against someone. In other words, we should listen to one witness in the area of any sin, of any chatas [sin], and if you do, you should have at least two or three edim [witnesses]. And of course the halacha struggles to understand what is two or three edim, if two is enough, then what’s the point of the third, but in the simple meaning it’s not hard to understand. The point is one witness is not enough, two or three at least. The point is of course three is better than two, maybe we can get into different, and halacha is very formal, like the laws of evidence are very formalized, but even in reality it doesn’t really work that way.

People sometimes get confused, they think because there’s such formal laws in the Gemara that means that’s how beis din [court] actually works. Beis din don’t actually work that way, and they’re not meant to work that way, and that’s why we have two or three edim. So the point is there’s independent verification, we understand the logic of this. One person might have dreamt it or something, you have two, then you have some independent verification that it actually happened, three is even better. And of course how to exactly figure this out, that’s the job of the judges or the people who make these rules to figure out exactly what to do.

The Law of False Witnesses

Now there’s one more very important law about witness. Of course the big problem with a court who mostly relies on witnesses, especially in those days, nowadays we very much rely on documents, now we have video and other kinds of evidence, physical evidence, and already in Talmud and Chazal we have much reliance on physical evidence of various kinds, especially contracts and things like that. In the Torah we do not find that there’s not really reference in any laws to physical written contracts or anything like that. Basically all law is dependent on oral witnesses, live witnesses, and this opens us up to many different problems.

Of course the first big problem is false witness. False witness is the biggest issue for a court system that’s mostly based on witness testimony. Therefore we need to have very extreme measures to deal with people who give false witness. Of course that’s why we have also the concept of falsely swearing, which is another way of proving that you’re right in this kind of culture, that’s why that’s taken very seriously, and the same thing false witness is taken very seriously.

The Procedure for False Witnesses

So here we have something very simple and very basic. If two people come and give false witness, and it gives lifnei Hashem, lifnei hakohanim, lifnei hashoftim [before Hashem, before the priests, before the judges] in their days, and we find out, v’darash [and they investigate] — Hashem doesn’t say here how, the judges figure out that you’ve been lying, of course the Talmud has some formalization of this, but again we’re trying to read it in the simple sense — and what happens is we do to the witness what he wanted to do to his brother, to the guilty party according to him.

Eye for Eye in the Context of False Testimony

And this law seems to have been taken, this is a very extreme law, which is why we get the exhortation in the end, v’lo tachos einecha [and do not have compassion], do not let your eye have compassion, you should give exactly what they want, a soul for a soul, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot. This is particularly said about this, and we understand this very well because this is the kind of, we call it, very basic, the deterrence that you need, because otherwise it’s very hard to understand what the price is for being a false witness, right?

A false witness is always something that has low risk and high reward. Like if you hate someone and you give false witness and you cause him to be put to death or punished monetarily or punished with corporal punishment and then, you know, in the worst case you’ll get some small fine or something.

The Brilliance of the Deterrent

So this law, very smartly and very strictly, makes the deterrence here, because it gives the price of bearing witness to be the price of exactly what you want to do. You want to kill someone, you should know that that means that if we catch you being a liar, lying, you will be killed in the same way that you wanted to kill that person, and the same for any other punishment.

And of course that’s why this doesn’t mean necessarily only if the person was killed. Halacha says specifically if he wasn’t killed, but the point is, because it has to be specifically about the act of bearing witness itself. The act of bearing witness itself has to have this level of seriousness, this level of the deterrence, that it should carry the weight of the kind of thing you’re trying to do. Otherwise witness is a very weak thing to rely on, so we need these very extreme measures against it.

That’s the chapter 19.