{"id":49147,"date":"2019-02-10T22:43:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T20:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=49147"},"modified":"2022-09-04T16:27:51","modified_gmt":"2022-09-04T13:27:51","slug":"the-cities-of-refuge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-cities-of-refuge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cities Of Refuge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[366,762,409,631],"acf":{"old_id":"49147","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"152","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The responsibility of the High Priest for keeping the peace","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our chapter describes a very important social structure in ancient Israel: the cities of refuge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These six cities\u2014three on each side of the Jordan River (35:14)\u2014were designed to enable unpremeditated murderers to evade potential avengers until their guilt or innocence could be established in court. (The details, sparing in our chapter, are provided in greater detail in the second chapter of Tractate Makkot and in \u201cThe Laws of Murder and the Preservation of Life\u201d of Maimonides\u2019s Mishneh Torah.) If found guilty, they were punished; if found innocent, they were returned to the city of refuge, there to reside \u201cuntil the death of the High Priest who was anointed with the sacred oil\u201d (35:24). Why is one dependent on the other?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was asked this very question on an El Al flight to Israel in the 1970s by a group of Christians embarked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They were initially disappointed to hear that I was not a rabbi (at that time), but were reassured when I told them that I was, nonetheless, a Bible teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rashi, drawing upon the Midrash and Talmud, explained that the High Priest bore a metaphysical responsibility to keep the peace among the Israelites and the commission of a murder on his watch \u2014even if accidental\u2014indicated that he was negligent in performing his duty. (Maimonides [Guide 3:40] speculated that the national mourning that accompanied the death of a High Priest would distract the avengers.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I shared Rashi\u2019s explanation with the pilgrims, who embraced it wholeheartedly and thanked me for the spiritual uplifting it conveyed. I wonder what their reaction would have been had I added that\u2014pursuant to Rashi\u2019s reasoning\u2014the Mishnah states that it was the mothers of the High Priests who fed these refugees, lest they pray for the untimely deaths of their sons.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":105065,"id":105065,"title":"-628b8d8e0f8c8--628b8d8e0f8caex28-high priest clothes.png","filename":"628b8d8e0f8c8-628b8d8e0f8caex28-high-priest-clothes.png.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/10\/628b8d8e0f8c8-628b8d8e0f8caex28-high-priest-clothes.png.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/kavod-and-tiferet-clothes-make-the-high-priest\/628b8d8e0f8c8-628b8d8e0f8caex28-high-priest-clothes-png\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"628b8d8e0f8c8-628b8d8e0f8caex28-high-priest-clothes-png","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":43011,"date":"2022-05-23 13:35:10","modified":"2022-09-04 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