Drasha
In recent years, 'sanctuary city' has become one of those political buzzwords that signifies a highly partisan issue, as local governments assert their independence from federal intrusion. First, there were sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants, which bore the nearly-satirical recent response of establishing “sanctuary cities” where COVID restrictions will not be enforced, and most recently, sanctuary cities were federal gun laws will not be enforced. It’s clear that this sense of “sanctuary” is a local shelter and reprieve from the federal government itself, as local communities assert their individual values, for better or worse, in the face of federal coercion.
But when we look at this week’s Parshah, we find that the biblical origin of a sanctuary city, the Ir Miklat, is not a local protection from the federal government, but, in fact, exactly the opposite. The biblical Cities of Refuge represent a governmentally sanctioned form of protection against the emotional responses and whims of individual citizens and locales. One of Moshe’s last commandments before the Jewish people begin their campaign to enter and conquer Israel, the cities of refuge are established to protect accidental killers from the vengeful passions of a victim’s surviving family members. While the Torah empowers the victim’s family to seek revenge and redeem the blood of their loved one by killing the accidental murderer, it also establishes Arei Miklat as safe havens, where the accidental murderer can hide in safety.
Lest one think that the Torah is giving people a free pass to kill others without consequence, the standard for qualifying for an Ir Miklat is notably high. Not only must the murder have been accidental and unintentional, but it must not have been easily foreseeable or preventable. If there is substantial evidence of negligence, then the Torah does not protect against the vengeful surviving family members. Thus, for example, the Gemara in Makkot rules that if someone was chopping wood and the axe head flew off their axe and killed someone, they would not be eligible to seek refuge in an Ir Miklat, for they were negligent by not checking their equipment beforehand to make sure it was safely secured. However, if a safely secured axe is being used to cut wood and a splinter of wood unpredictably breaks off and kills someone, then such an unusual and unforeseeable circumstance would grant the woodcutter access to the protection of an Ir Miklat... continued here.
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