:'d i¬¥pi¥r §A x− ̈W ̈I©d d¬¤U£r«©z i ¦M L®¤A §x ¦T ¦n i−¦w ̈P©d m¬ ̈C©d x²¥r©a §Y d À ̈Y ©`§e (wy twwf)
“And you shall remove the innocent blood from your midst”. This Parsha is talking about when a person was found murdered in a field and it was not known who killed him. The elders and Judges shall measure to the closest city to the corpse. The elders of the closest city shall take a calf to a firm valley and break the back of calf’s neck and behead it. Then, the elders say to Hashem “Atone for Your people of Israel. Do not place innocent blood in the midst of your people Yisrael.”
The question is. When the possuk tells us that we must remove the innocent blood, this refers to putting to death the murderer. Which in essence is a command. However, the difficulty here is, that the possuk says that we don’t know who murdered him, how then can we put him to death? The answer can be: The Targum Yonoson Ben Uzeil says that Hashem made a miracle that after the calf was beheaded worms set out from the corpse and slowly made their way till they came upon the murderer. According to this insight the pshat in possuk is clear:
dz`e, xraz This is a command that you must kill the murderer when you find him. The question is how will you find the murderer? The answer is 'd i¬¥pi¥r §A x− ̈W ̈I©d d¬¤U£r«©z i ¦M, that Hashem will guide to the right place. Therefore, Rashi says an interesting twist, that even if the murderer was found after the beheading of the calf, he is still put to death. The reason for this is, that the Torah knew that the murderer will be eventually caught through the worms. Therefore, the beheading does not clear the murderer of his punishment. The beheading of the calf was only to rid any harsh decrees on the closest city to the murder. This is a powerful lesson that one cannot hide from Hashem. Only Teshuva with a full heart, saves a person from punishment. In retrospect, when something good has to come to a person, he can be wherever, the good would reach him. Hashem never reneges on getting things done.
(Yehuda Z. Klitnick)
