Devarim 21:1-8 – The eglah arufa ceremony

Devarim 21:1-8 records a set of rituals that are to take place, the eglah arufa ceremony, if a corpse, which was presumed to have been murdered, was found in the field but the killer is unknown. The ceremony involves actions by the elders, judges and the priests, and the killing (decapitating) of a heifer in or near a wadi. Note, it is not clear if 21:9 is part of the ceremony or a charge of Moshe to the people when he was relating to them the laws of the eglah arufa ceremony.

What is the reason for this ceremony? 21:8 refers to the some of the participants of the ceremony asking for kapparah for the Jewish people, but kapparah for what? Also, why was the ceremony only done if the corpse was found in a field and not in the city?

One approach to understanding the eglah arufa ceremony is that it is to "neutralize" the effect of the murder on the land, see Patai 1939, Milgrom 1971, and maybe the Ramban on 21:5-8. Bemidbar 35:33 records that murder defiles the land, and that the land needs to be atoned when there is a murder. Bemidbar 35:33 also records that the atonement of the land is supposed to result from punishing the murderer, but in this case the murderer is unknown so according to the adherents of this approach the ceremony is a replacement to bring atonement to the land, the kapparah referred to in 21:8. Yet, with this rationale, the ceremony should also have been required if the corpse was found in the ground in a city or town, which probably is more likely than finding a dead body in the field since more people live in cities and towns, though maybe in antiquity more people lived in the country.

A second approach is that the local authorities have a responsibility to ensure the safety of the public and in this case they failed. Rashi (on 21:7), quoting from the Talmud Sotah 45b, writes that the local authorities might have been indirectly responsible for the death of the person since maybe they let the victim leave their city without an escort. For this failure to provide public security, the local authorities and the public as a whole need atonement, kapparah, and this explains why the elders, the judges and the priests are involved in the ceremony.

The approach can explain some of the details of the ceremony. 21:3,4 record that the heifer that is killed had never worked, and that the ceremony takes place by a wadi which had never been tilled or could not be tilled afterwards, which emphasizes the loss of life due to the murder, see Rashi on 21:4. The seeing of the dead heifer and the wadi by the local authorities and the priests might make them aware of their failure in not maintaining public security. Maybe one can then claim that this ceremony was only done for a murder in the fields since in the city the local authorities would take responsibility to provide public security, but they might be tempted to shirk responsibility for people outside of their jurisdiction. Yet, can one really fault the elders for not escorting the victim, does every person who leaves a city need an escort? Can local authorities protect every person from being killed?

The Rambam (Moreh, 3:40) suggests a third approach that the ceremony was in order to help catch the murderer. He writes, “there will be many stories and discussions among the people because of the investigation, the going-forth of the elders, the measurements, and the fact that the heifer is brought there.” The talk will lead to the discovery of the murderer. Furthermore, since the land where the heifer was to be killed could never be used, the owner of the land would make every possible effort to ensure that the murderer is caught. I do not understand this last point since I understand that the heifer was killed in a deserted area. It would seem to me that doing the ceremony in the land of a person unconnected with the crime would be stealing, see our discussion on 21:4, "The eglah arufah ceremony: A wadi in the land of Israel."

With this approach the prayer for kapparah in 21:8 would be for the local authorities and the people who did not find the murderer. A possible proof for this idea is that 21:9, whether it was part of the ceremony or not, stresses the importance of purging the innocent blood shed, which means to punish the murderer, see 19:13. (The Jerusalem Talmud, Sotah 9:6, suggests that maybe the guilt of the local authorities is that they let the murderer go free and failed to punish him, though this seems to be a very low probability event.)

N. Leibowitz (1980a, pp. 201-208, see also Ramban on 21:5-8, and Abravanel 1999, p. 324) rejects the Rambam’s suggestion since she doubts that “all this elaborate ritual was designed merely as a device for detecting the murderer.” Yet, it could be that the killing of the heifer was a sign for the penalty the murderer was supposed to receive (Driver, 1902, p. 242), and the fact that heifer had never been worked highlights the innocent blood that was shed, as by the second approach. Also, the going to a wadi in a deserted area would make the ceremony more burdensome for the local authorities, which would give them an incentive to work hard to catch the murderer to avoid having to do the ceremony. Furthermore, it could be that for the Rambam the crucial issue is the ceremony itself and not the details of the ceremony.

Would the ceremony really lead to that much more knowledge of the murderer? 21:1 implies that an investigation was done to find the murderer before proceeding with the ceremony (see Tigay 1996, p. 191, quoting Josephus, Antiquities 4.220). If the investigation failed it would be unlikely that the ceremony would produce more evidence. Yet, maybe it is important to mark an end to the investigation and then one can learn from the failures. If one just allows an investigation to drift off, then there is no accounting for how to improve an investigation for the next murder. According to this idea, could one claim that a murder investigation in a city never ends and/or is usually fully investigated, while by a murder in a field where nobody lives, there is barely any investigation at all. Accordingly, the eglah arufa ceremony was by the finding of the corpse in the field to increase the incentive to have an investigation and to help find the murderer in this case and other cases.

A different idea is that it is well known that if one repeats a ceremony even if it is meaningful, too many times, the ceremony loses its specialness, and people become annoyed with the ceremony. Maybe the same idea is relevant here. Really, the ceremony is appropriate wherever the body is found, but if it is done in every case where a murder is unknown, then the ceremony will lose its impact. Just doing the ceremony when a corpse is found in the field makes the ceremony a unique event, which will impart the participants with a greater sense of responsibility. With this idea, the prayer of 21:8 (and 21:9?) that the Jewish people should be forgiven would not be just for the corpse found in the field that necessitated the ceremony, but for all cases of unsolved murders. This idea would only be relevant to the second and third approaches, as with the first approach even if the ceremony had no meaning to the people involved still the land “needs” the ceremony to attain kapparah.

A historical curiosity of the eglah arufa ceremony is that the Mishnah (Sotah 9:9) writes that the ceremony was discontinued when there were many murderers in the country. Yet, one would think that specifically when there were many murders, then the ceremony was more crucial. The Rambam (Laws of murder and preservation of life, 9:12) seems to explain that when there were many murders, then there was always somebody who had information about the murder, and the ceremony was not done even if there was just one witness to the event. Yet, even if the ceremony was not done when there existed one witness, still the ceremony should still occur when there is no known witness because if this is not true, then the ceremony could never have occurred since one could always say maybe there is some witness out there. Instead, maybe the idea is that when there were many murders, there were many unsolved murders, and then the ceremony became too frequent and lost its effect, so Chazal discontinued the ceremony.

Bibliography:

Abarbanel, Yitzhak (1437-1508), 1999, Commentary on Devarim, Jerusalem: Horev Publishing

Driver, Samuel Rolles, 1902, A critical and exegetical commentary on Deuteronomy, third edition, Edinburgh: T & T Clark.

Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1980a, Studies in Devarim, translated and adapted by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization.

Milgrom, Jacob, 1971, Eglah Arufah, in Encyclopedia Judaica, Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, Vol. 6, pp. 475-477.

Patai Raphael, 1939, The 'egla 'arufa or the expiation of the polluted land, Jewish Quarterly Review, 30, pp. 59-69.

Tigay, Jeffrey H. 1996, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society

The kinah: Eicah eli konenu - The tragic death of Yoshiyahu - איכה אלי קוננו

On Tisha B’av there is a custom to recite kinot at night and in the morning, and in previous years we have discussed the kinot Shavat suru meni and Eicah asta be-apcha, the first two kinot that are recited in the morning. This year we will discuss the sixth kinah that is recited in the morning, Eicah eli konenu.

The kinah, Eicah eli konenu, again by R. Elazar haKalir, has twenty-two lines, and an addendum with four more lines. The first word in each of the twenty-two lines is the first word in each verse of chapter four of Eicah, and as the order of the verses in chapter four of Eicah, as well as the first three chapters of Eicah, follow the aleph bet, the order of this kinah is also based on the order of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The relationship between chapter four in Eicah and this kinah is that many people understand Eicah 4:20 to be referring to Yoshiyahu (Talmud Ta’anit 22b). Also, since Divrei Hayamim II 35:25 records that Yirmiyahu wrote a kinah about Yoshiyahu, there developed the idea that all of chapter four in Eicah is a kinah about Yoshiyahu, see Rashi on Eicah 4:1.

This kinah is a fairly well-known kinah since the kinah is relatively less obscure than other kinot. This kinah is based on the tragic death of Yoshiyahu (Josiah), who was the King of Yehuda from 639-608 BCE. (His death is recorded very briefly in Melachim II 23:29,30 and with a little bit more detail in Divrei Ha-Yamim II 35:20-25.) When Yoshiyahu was 39 years old, in 608 BCE, Egyptian forces came by boat to Israel and wanted to march through the land apparently to aid the Assyrians (in northern Syria/ Iraq) who were fighting the Babylonians. Yoshiyahu attempted to stop the Egyptians, and he was killed fighting the Egyptians in Megiddo, around 100 kilometers north of Jerusalem.

The first line of the kinah, aleph, notes that Yoshiyahu started to rule when he was eight years, as he began to rule after his father, Amon, was assassinated.

The second line of the kinah records how the Egyptians wanted to pass through the land of Israel, and that Yoshiyahu’s good deeds did not save him. This is the question of the kinah, how could it be that such a righteous king was killed by the Egyptians? Note the Egyptians are referred to as the children of Ham, the son of Noah who was cursed in some manner (Bereshit 8:19-27), and also in the third blessing by kriat shema at arvit, Egypt is referred to as the children of Ham. This disparaging reference to Egypt only increases the question how could such a righteous king die by the hands of descendant of the cursed Ham?

The third line of the kinah describes how great was Yoshiyahu, as it says that he was the best leader the people had since Moshe (called Avigdor in the kinah). This line is based on Melachim II 23:25, which makes the same point. I have always wondered what happened to King David or Yehoshua? Rav Soloveitchik (2010, p. 294) writes that Yehoshua was greater than Yoshiyahu, but Yehoshua was not a king. This idea accords with the verse in Melachim II, which stresses that Yoshiyahu was the greatest king. With regard to King David, Rav Soloveitchik suggests that Yoshiyahu was greater than David in the sense that Yoshiyahu had to destroy idols and David did not have to fight against idol worship. This might be, but traditionally David is remembered as the greatest king. Perhaps, Yoshiyahu is not remembered as prominently as David because Yoshiyahu had such a tragic end as discussed in the kinah.

After stating how great Yoshiyahu was, lines four, six and the second half of line 8 of the kinah try to explain how it was that Yoshiyahu suffered such a tragic death if he was so righteous. The answer in the kinah is that he suffered due to the sins of his generation who sinned secretly. For example, line four states that people kept idols on the two sides of the door, which meant that the idols would not be seen if the door was open, but when the door was closed then the people would see and worship the idols in their homes (Midrash Eicah Rabbah 1:53).

Line five of the kinah presages the end of the kinah that Yoshiyahu who was considered to be like gold would instead be completely tarnished like coal by the Egyptians when they killed home so cruelly.

Line seven records that Yoshiyahu ripped his clothing, when he realized that he had not succeeded in reforming the people. The source for this line is a statement by R. Yaakov on Eicah 2:17 (recorded in Midrash Eicah 1:1 and 2:21).

The first half of line eight notes the approaching Egyptian army, and lines nine and ten of the kinah quote from Divrei Hayamim II 35:21 that the Egyptian king Neco sent a messenger to ask Yoshiyahu not to intervene and to let the Egyptian forces pass through the land of Israel.

Line 11 of the kinah records that Yoshiyahu did not agree to this request from Neco, and Yoshiyahu justified his refusal by referring to the blessing recorded in Vayikra 26:6 that a foreign army would not cross through the land of Israel.

Line 12 then records that Yoshiyahu also did not listen to Yirmiyahu who urged him to let the Egyptians pass through. Rav Soloveitchik explains (2010, p. 296) explains that Yirmiyahu understood the verse in Vayikra only to mean that an enemy army would not pass through the land of Israel, but Egypt at that time was not an enemy, which meant that they should be allowed to pass through. However, the Talmud (Ta’anit 22b) quotes that Yoshiyahu argued that the verse also referred to a peaceful foreign army, and hence he thought that he had divine support to stop the Egyptian army.

Line 13 of the kinah ignores this argument about Vayikra 26:6, but states that in any event the people were not worthy of receiving the blessing from G-d since they sinned secretly and ignored the words of Yirmiyahu who was from Anatot (a little north of Jerusalem).

Line 14 of the kinah records how the Egyptians slaughtered the Jewish people in the battle and line 15 records how some people (Yirmiyahu?) tried to tell the people to retreat and stop fighting, but the people continued to fight the Egyptians.

Line 16 of the kinah records how the Egyptian archers succeeded at shooting at Yoshiyahu, and lines 17 and 18 state how even after they wounded Yoshiyahu, they continued to shoot more arrows at him, as altogether three hundred arrows pierced him. The source for these lines is that Divrei Hayamim II 35:23 records that Yoshiyahu was fatally wounded by Egyptian arrows, while Midrash Eicah Rabbah (1:53) quotes R. Manni that three hundred arrows pierced him to such an extent that his body became like a sieve. Horrible.

Lines 19 and 20 of the kinah record that as Yoshiyahu’s attendants went to him in his dying moments, they heard him say that “G-d was righteous and that I had sinned” a verse from Eicah 1:18. This indicates that Yoshiyahu did teshuvah in his dying moments that he recognized that he had sinned by not listening to Yirmiyahu. The source for these lines is the Talmud Ta’anit 22b and Eicah Rabbah 1:53, which states that Yoshiyahu said these words to Yirmiyahu.

Line 21 of the kinah notes that Egypt would be punished for what they did and three years later, in 605 BCE, the Egyptian army was decisively defeated by the Babylonians in two battles in northern Syria.

Line 22, the last line of the kinah, returns to Yoshiyahu, who again (as in line five) is compared to the finest gold, and again the kinah states that he was punished due to the sins of the people, which is the answer to the question how could such a righteous person die in such a horrible manner.

The next four lines are the addendum to the kinah, and they state that Yoshiyahu died at Megiddo and in a post-shemitta year. I am not sure why it is important that he died in a post-shemitta year, but maybe this was to connect his death with the destruction of the second Bet ha-Mikdash which according to Seder Olam (quoted in Erechin 12b) was also destroyed in a post-shemitta year.

The kinah then notes that 22 years after Yoshiyahu died, 586 BCE, the first Bet ha-Mikdash was destroyed which corresponds to the twenty-two words or lines of the kinah.

The last two lines of the addendum are obscure, but seem to refer back to the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash, that an anonymous person is quoted as saying that he thought that G-d would protect the people, but G-d let the Bet ha-Mikdash be destroyed. Maybe these lines are here since Yoshiyahu also thought that G-d would protect him, but G-d let his die so horribly.

One question about this kinah is that I have never understood why Yoshiyahu did not listen to Yirmiyahu and why would he have thought that he knew the interpretation of the Torah better than Yirmiyahu. While one can give a political answer that no king wants to have a foreign army march though his/ her territory, or that Yoshiyahu was worried that Egypt was not going to just march through peacefully or that Yoshiyahu thought that by attacking the Egyptians, he would become an ally of the Babylonians, the rising power in the world, still Yirmiyahu had told him to allow the Egyptians to pass through. My guess is that maybe Yoshiyahu understood that he was a righteous king and he thought that it was obvious that G-d would save him, and this seems to be a conception of some religious people that they become very confident that G-d will intervene to save them even if they are acting recklessly.

Another question concerning this kinah is why do we recite a kinah about the death of one person? Rav Soloveitchik (2010, pp. 292, 293) proposed three answers. One, the kinah about one person shows that what happens to one person is important. Two, Yoshiyahu was great leader and king, and the loss of a “great” person can be comparable to the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash, and three, Yoshiyahu’s death signaled the ensuing destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash since if a righteous king like Yoshiyahu could not save the people, then all was lost.

I would add that it is “obvious” that R. Elazar haKalir would write a kinah about Yoshiyahu’s tragic death once Divrie Hayamim II 35:25 states that Yirmiyahu wrote a kinah about Yoshiyahu, and, as mentioned above, there is the idea that chapter four of Eicah is a kinah about Yoshiyahu. The question is why did Yirmiyahu write a kinah about Yoshiyahu, and the answer could be that since Yirmiyahu knew Yoshiyahu personally, his death was a great blow to Yirmiyahu and Yirmiyahu might have even felt guilty that he was unable to have stopped Yoshiyahu from fighting the Egyptians.

Bibliography:

Rav Soloveitchik, 2010, The Koren mesorat harav kinot: Commentary on the kinot based on the teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, edited by Simon Posner, Jerusalem: Koren Publishers; New York: OU Press.