Finding new meaning in one of the Torah's more alien rituals

Amnesh Yasatzu was a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.  A bit more than a week ago, she was run over by a car on Highway 66 in the Israeli city of Yokneam, near Haifa.  The car drove off without stopping.  Then she was hit by another car that also drove off.  A third car flipped over after swerving to avoid hitting her yet again.


Amnesh Yasatzu was nineteen years old.


Last Thursday, ten Israeli rabbis gathered at the spot where Amnesh was killed.  They prayed together.  Then they cried out to the Lord: "Our hands have not spilled this blood and our eyes have not seen.  Atone for Your people who You have redeemed, O Lord, and don't give innocent blood to be in the midst of Your people."


Those words are from the Torah - Deuteronomy 21:7-8.  They are part of a ceremony know as ha-eglah ha-arufah - literally, the necked heifer.  The Torah means for this ceremony to be performed whenever a dead body is found and its assailant is unknown.  First, responsibility for the body is assigned by determining which city is closest to the place it was found.  The elders of that city then adjourn to a desolate field, bringing with them a year old heifer which has never worked a field.  They break (some translate as axe) the back of the neck of the heifer, after which they wash their hands and make the declaration cited above.


The rabbis who gathered at the side of Highway 66 did not bring a heifer with them.  They dispensed with that part of the ritual entirely.  Nevertheless, in reviving at least a part of this strange ritual, they were making a powerful statement about what the death of this young soldier means to her community.  Rabbi David Stav, who led the group of rabbis performing this ritual put it best when he said that there "should not be a situation in which blood is haphazardly spilt and the public does not perform any act of remorse"  He went on to say that "the Torah presents an uncompromising moral statement, that all of us, religious, traditional and secular, have to adopt: We are responsible for spilt blood.  We are responsible for blood spilt in road accidents, we are responsible for blood spilt in stupid gang fights, for women murdered by their husbands, and for the blood spilt in the murders which fill the pages of our newspapers."


The above Jerusalem Post article cites the 15th century exegete Isaac Abarbanel who said that this peculiar ceremony "was meant to shock residents of the cities close to the site where the corpse was discovered.  The purpose was to interrupt the routine of everyday life and force those watching and passing by to think about and take responsibility for a situation in which a society can allow a person’s death to go unpunished and unnoticed."


Though I have read this section of Torah many times before, the eglah arufah ceremony first made an impression on me perhaps three or four years ago.  It awakened me to a simple fact that I have always known but had not thought about all that much.  When a person is arrested and charged with a crime, the matter is pursued under the caption "The State of Such-and-such Versus So-and-so."  We don't prosecute people in the name of the victim or the victim's family.  We do so in the name of the community.  In other words, crimes committed against a person are really crimes against the entire community and on that basis do we deny someone convicted of a crime their liberty or even their lives.

As much as it is a means of protecting ourselves and punishing wrongdoing, our criminal justice system says something about us.  The harshness or leniency of the punishments we mete out - and the consistency with which we apply these standards - all speak to who we are as a community.  But what the eglah arufah ceremony reminds us is that we say something about ourselves even when we don't know on whom to charge the crime. Someone has been hurt.  Perhaps even blood has been shed.  Can we turn away from such a thing and not diminish ourselves? 

To those who mourn for Amnesh Yasatzu, I pray that God comfort them among those who mourn in Zion and Jerusalem.  And for Rabbi Stav and those who stood with him to atone for her death, may the Holy One strengthen those who bring the words and the teachings of Torah to enrich and ennoble our lives.

The Coming War

Back on Rosh Hashanah 5771 (September 2010) I gave a sermon exhorting the need to stand with Israel.  A number of factors motivated me to give that sermon - not least my fear that Israel would be forced to attack Iran before the year was out.


My timing was wrong, but this morning the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reports that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes Israel could attack Iran within the next few months.  

Why Secretary Panetta is announcing this publicly is a matter of speculation.  Perhaps he is warning Israel against such an attack; perhaps this is some kind of feint.  Whatever the reason, things are certainly coming to a head.  I have heard reports to the effect that the feeling in Israel today is similar to the way it was in 1967 as Arab armies from Syria, Jordan and Egypt were amassing along Israel's borders in preparation to attack.


As you should remember, Israel responded to that threat by launching a surprise attack against the powerful Egyptian Air Force - destroying most of it while it was on the ground.  By doing so, they effectively won the Six Day War in the first hour and a half.


Israel always responds to existential threats.  The lesson of World War II is that Jews cannot afford to do otherwise.  In 1981 - to the condemnation of the world - it destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq before it could be loaded with fuel.  It did the same in 2007 to a Syrian nuclear reactor.  


Iran, having learned from these previous attacks, poses a much greater threat.  Its nuclear facilities are dispersed throughout that large country and the most important are buried deep underground to protect them from aerial attack.  An article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine tells us that Israel feels like they have about a nine month window in which they can still deal a crippling blow to Iran's nuclear ambitions.  Hence the need to act soon.


What will be the outcome of such an attack if or when it happens?  As the Times article details, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan believes the attack will not only fail strategically, it will wreak havoc inside Israel.  Iran's terrorist ally Hezbollah is sitting on Israel's northern border with an arsenal of 50,000 rockets - many capable of reaching as far as Tel Aviv.  A much wider war is very possible.  A tremendous spike in oil prices - one that will make each of us long for the days of $4/gallon gasoline - is far from impossible.  If Israel attacks Iran, the entire world will likely feel the effects.


And if Israel does not attack Iran?  Well then, we may well witness yet another Holocaust in our lifetimes.  Or a nuclear armed Iran - which is forming alliances with countries like Venezuela - may try to sneak a nuclear weapon into the United States.  


One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn - and still need to keep relearning - is that problems don't just go away.  They need to be confronted.  Confronting them sooner rather than later minimizes the damage that will be done.  The allies had numerous opportunities to confront Hitler in the years leading up to World War II.  They chose instead to waver, to excuse, to appease and to dishonor themselves. The result of such debasement was the biggest war in history - and the destruction of European Jewry.


How things will play out in this terrible drama over the next weeks, months and years is known only in heaven.  You and I are, for all intents and purposes, powerless to impact the decision that will be made in Tehran, in Washington, in Jerusalem and perhaps elsewhere.  But one thing is certain for me - and I hope for all of you.  Whatever happens, however it all plays out, I will stand with my brothers and sisters in Israel. My prayers will be for their well being and for God's protection and care.


In the Song of the Sea, which we read this week, we say "With Your kindness You guided this people that You redeemed; You led them with Your might to Your holy abode."  May the Holy One, Blessed be He, continue to redeem His people, and shield them in peace in His holy abode.