Massei 5771 - English

Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik

Congregacion kol shearith Israel

The expression “cada muerte de obispo” (each bishop’s death, meaning “once every blue moon”) is used in relation to something that occurs rarely. Many years ago, a teacher told me that this saying’s origin could be found in the Torah, in Parashat Massei, and that the bishop in question was no other than the Spanish way to designate the Cohen Gadol (High Priest). Although I have never been able to corroborate this, the other explanations I’ve found are so flawed (the only one that had sense referred to the saying “each bishop’s visit”), that I am more and more convinced of the saying’s biblical origin.

Chapter 35 of the book of Numbers establishes that involuntary homicides (people who had killed someone by accident) could protect themselves from the “avengers” by seeking asylum in the 6 cities of refuge appointed to that purpose, or in the 42 cities assigned to Levites distributed all over the territory of the promised land.

We have to consider that the Law of Retaliation (“An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth… life for life”), which appears in the Hammurabi Code (18th century bCE) and also in the Torah (Ex. 21:23-25, Lev. 24:18-20, and Deut. 19:21) recognized the right for revenge to the victim (or otherwise, an “avenger”), with the limitation of causing killers identical damage to those they had inflicted. (Later on, Talmud sages will interpret it as “equivalent monetary compensation.”)

By distinguishing involuntary killers from those who kill intentionally, the Torah adds a link to the justice evolving process. The former ones have the right to protect themselves, and hence the 6 cities of refuge (they could take refuge as well in the Levite cities, but there, they would have to support themselves), just as is established by our parashah (Num 35:9-34) and other passages in the Torah (Ex. 21:13, Deut. 4:41-44 and 19:1-13).

Refugees held that status until the Cohen Gadol died, when they could return home without any fear of revenge (Num. 35:25 and 28). The death of the highest religious authority –an event that occurred rarely, and hence the origin of the saying “each bishop’s death” – signaled a sort of general amnesty that ended all lawsuits.

It would be logical to ask: what was the relation between the Cohen Gadol’s death and the end of the right for revenge? In his monumental translation and commentary to the Chumash, Rabbi Mordechai Edery z’’l suggests two possible answers.

The first is that of the Mincha Belulah (Rabbi Avraham Menachem Rapa of Porto, Italy, 16^th century), which says that the cities of refuge and Levite cities were under the reign of the Cohen Gadol, and as the custom went, when the maximum authority died, a general amnesty was declared.

The second is that of Maimonides (Spain, 12^th century), who maintains that the death of the Cohen Gadol, the most honorable man of all and friend of the entirety of Israel, caused such grief that it surely made the blood avenger abandon his avenging attitude (Guide of the Perplex, Part 3, Chapter 40).

Returning to our subject and seeing beyond yet another example of our tradition’s continuous search for justice (Micah 6:8), what can we learn from the story of the cities of refuge?

One of the great Hassidic teachers, the Apter Rav (Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt, Poland, 1748-1825), finds a fascinating parallelism between the 6 cities of refuge and 42 Levite cities with the 6 words of the Shema (Deut. 6:4) and remaining 42 words of the passage (the Ve’ahavta, 6:5-9). His conclusion: Just like in ancient times a man could find shelter in the cities of refuge when he had committed an involuntary fault, today we can find rest (and I would add, “guide and inspiration”) in “the city” of the Shema.

Shabbat Shalom,

Gustavo