October 18th: Sukkot
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
Last year, I mused about the curious literary and television tradition of clergy investigating crimes. From the various vicars of Grantchester to Father Brown and the detective monk in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, to the 10th Century Benedictine Monk Cadfael—and to Harry Kellerman’s Rabbi David Small, there is a curious intersection in which people of faith try to figure out why other people commit crimes.
In the Torah, in Deuteronomy 21, we have an early mention of what we now would call a murder mystery. If a corpse is found out in a field or on the road, what should be done? Though one figures that the authorities would try to figure out “who dunit,” the Torah seems to have a different concern. Measurements are taken to determine the closest town, and that town’s leaders are to assemble at the crime scene. The priests kill a heifer, and the leaders wash their hands over the heifer, saying: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Absolve, O Lord, Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.”
It is a curious ritual because it does not seem to have anything to do with figuring out what happened—a fact not lost on the Rabbis of the Mishnah. They ask, “Why must the elders of the closest town declare their innocence? If no one is accused of the crime, they they are not responsible. If someone is accused of the crime, then he/she is the responsible party.” It is so perplexing that the Mishnah (in Sotah 9) even imagines God asking about it. “Why would it occur to you that the elders of the town are somehow involved or guilty? And, if not, then this declaration seems unnecessary.” Is there communal responsibility or not? If not, then why the ritual? And, if there is communal responsibility, then how would a mere denial of responsibility achieve justice?
These questions continue in the Talmud (Sotah 38b), and the Sages work toward an explanation—recasting the question of guilt or innocence into a reminder of general social responsibility. According to the Gemara, when the leaders say, “Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see it,” what they should be thinking is that, hopefully “(the victim) did not come to our village, and we did not dismiss him; we did not see him and leave him.” Hopefully, this dead person was not previously victimized by us ignoring him or refusing to help.
The community is thus asked to think about any interactions they might have had with the victim—interactions in which warning signs were missed. If there were none—or if they had had no contact with the victim, then they could assuage the survivor’s guilt that often accompanies a tragedy. If there were contact—and warning signs were present but ignored, the community is thus warned to pay more attention in the future. It is not a matter of the victim’s death being their fault, but rather that some action on their part could have prevented the victim from falling into malevolent hands.
Underlying this Talmudic discussion, there seems to be a psychological insight—that those who are close to a crime, even if they are not culpable, are nonetheless affected by the crime. An outrage or tragedy can inflict a kind of social or cosmic pain on a whole community, and there is often a need to come to grips with what has happened.
As I studied this Talmudic section at a Rabbinic Seminar this past August, my mind kept jumping to eerily similar modern situations—situations in which people outside of the circle of the victims nonetheless feel a kind of trauma. This can be accentuated with television and the internet in that we can feel proximate to all kinds of far off tragedies. But it is more than just tragedy voyeurism. Remember, for example, how close we all felt to the events of September 11, 2001. Even though most Americans lived far away from the actual tragedies, many of us felt personally assaulted. Though many in New York felt that it was “their” tragedy—because, in deed, many New Yorkers were the victims and the fallen heros, the fact is that people all over the United States felt a very strong, almost local connection to the catastrophic events. It was not “their” tragedy. It was ours.
And, though we may not be guilty when something terrible happens near us, many nonetheless feel a king of associative guilt. Unfortunately, our community knows this too well. When, some thirteen years ago, Jerry Sandusky was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted, our whole community reeled. Though none of us were responsible, most everyone in State College felt “guilt adjacent” and “gut-punched.” In addition to the legal processes which sought to deliver justice, the community as a whole felt the need for healing. Civic leaders worked on various ways for “the community to deal with the scandal.” Clergy teams dispersed to area congregations, trying to help people separate their angst from questions of actual culpability. The University and community all participated in various kinds of moral introspection—and various forms of amelioration or teshuvah.
Evidence of this communal associative guilt can be found in the nomenclature—in what we choose to call the scandal. While it should be called the Sandusky Scandal—because he was the sole perpetrator, many refer to it as the Penn State Scandal. This is not because we are all guilty or culpable but rather because we all feel connected and remorseful and somehow tainted by the terrible things done in our proximity. Could this be the kind of psychological dynamic the ancient Torah ritual is trying to address? When something terrible happens, we are all affected.
I should hasten to add that dealing with our guilt-adjacent feelings is not as important as actually dispensing justice for the actual victims. The Talmud’s counsel is inwardly directed and clearly a kind of self-care—and does not deal with the greater issue of a potential crime. However, a community’s psychic health is important, and that is why the Talmud spends time addressing it.
Now back to the moral introspection and inventory. Can we mean it when we say, “Our hands have not shed this blood?” Were there any warning signs that we missed? Could we have helped this person before he/she became a victim? If there were no missed signals, then the community can feel confident in their vigilance. But, if there were moral or charitable shortcomings, then the ritual declaration should remind everyone to pay better attention and to extend the hand of kindness and assistance.
This talk of communal culpability and possible responsibility reminds me of a discussion we had last Yom Kippur afternoon. It involved my ambivalence about a famous declaration from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: “Some are guilty; all are responsible.” “Some are guilty; all are responsible.”
Many people find this very meaningful, but I have always been troubled by it. Yes, when something bad happens, some are guilty. But, in my mind, Rabbi Heschel is trying to expand the blame to everyone else, and this does not seem judicious.
Of course, Rabbi Heschel was a great Torah scholar and an exemplary social justice leader, so I am certainly not in a position to question his wisdom. So I have thought about his statement and wrestled with it for years. It always made be feel a kind of moral discomfort, but then I had a possible breakthrough—a possible resolution. What if Rabbi Heschel were using the word responsible differently than I was hearing it? What if I were misunderstanding his message? If there were other definitions of the word responsible, perhaps I could find out what the modern Sage was trying to tell me. So, looking up the word, I was pleased to find several different definitions.
Responsible can mean “someone who causes something to happen,” but it can also refer to a “a duty or task someone is required or expected to do” or “a sense of moral obligation.”
In other words, sometimes the word responsible involves blaming something on someone, but other times the word speaks to how we see ourselves as constructive participants in solving the problems around us.
So, if I may presume to interpret the fifty-year old English of a native German speaker, I think I understand what Rabbi Heschel’s meant when he declared, “Some are guilty; all are responsible.” It is not a matter of blaming everyone for the sins and tragedies of the past. Some are guilty. But, as children and servants of God who are committed to helping God, we should feel connected enough to the rest of the world to have a sense of responsibility for making things better.
When something sad or egregious or tragic happens in our world, we are called upon to pay attention and to try to figure out where things went wrong. We are bidden not to ignore the imperfection which permeates the world but to develop a sense of responsibility for תִּקוּן עוֹלָם / Fixing the World. The hope is that we can do our part וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ / in bringing about God’s universal influence.
In other words, when that ancient corpse was found—and presumably an investigation sought to find out what happened, it was also time for the community to do some soul-searching. Whether we were at fault or not, are there things we can do to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again? Are there ways that we can help? Are there ways for us to expand our responsibility לְתַקֵן אֶת הָעוֹלָם / to repair God’s world?