וְ כֹל זִ קְ נֵ י הָ עִ יר הַ הִ וא הַ קְ רֹבִ ים אֶ ל־הֶ חָ לָ ל
“All the elders of the city nearest to the corpse” (Devarim 21:6)
When a corpse is found outside a city the Torah requires that the closest city perform the ritual of Eglah Arufah. This seems to indicate a degree of responsibility on the nearby city. Why does the Torah impose this atonement despite there being nothing to prove that the nearby city was the cause?
The Ibn Ezra explains that for such an occurrence to take place near a city, it must be that the city has done certain sins that allowed such a tragedy to have occurred in its vicinity. Therefore the city must take part in atoning for the death. There once was a tragic accident on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where a young boy was struck by a car. Seeing a yarmulke on the ground near the child an onlooker assumed that it was a Jewish boy who was struck. The onloonker went into nearby Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalayim and advised the Rosh Yeshivah of the tragic event. Rav Moshe Feinstein responded that it’s impossible for a Jewish boy to have been killed so close to a yeshivah where so many were learning Torah. The Rosh Yeshivah was confident that the merit of Torah study could not have allowed something like this to occur. Sure enough, it came to light that the yarmulke was there by chance and in fact it was not a Jewish boy that was struck.
