We Did Not Spill the Blood

Parshat Shoftim 

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

The Torah presents a kind of unsolved murder. A person is found murdered outside a city. The elders of the city come out and they measure whether the corpse is closer to their city or a nearby city, and whichever city is closest is deemed responsible for the death has its elders bring a calf to a riverbed (there’s a debate whether it is dry or has a river come through it or near it), where they kill the calf, wash their hands over the calf, and make the following declaration. 7And they shall announce and say,

7And they shall announce and say, "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see [this crime]." 8"Atone for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, O Lord, and lay not [the guilt of] innocent blood among your people Israel." And [so] the blood shall be atoned for them.		זוְעָנ֖וּ וְאָֽמְר֑וּ יָדֵ֗ינוּ לֹ֤א שָֽׁפְכוּ֙ (כתיב שפכה֙) אֶת־הַדָּ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה וְעֵינֵ֖ינוּ לֹ֥א רָאֽוּ: חכַּפֵּר֩ לְעַמְּךָ֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֤ל אֲשֶׁר־פָּדִ֨יתָ֙ יְהֹוָ֔ה וְאַל־תִּתֵּן֙ דָּ֣ם נָקִ֔י בְּקֶ֖רֶב עַמְּךָ֣ יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל

 Quoting a Gemara in Sotah, Rav Hirsch notes how strange this declaration is. Surely no one suspects that the elders are guilty of the murder! Utilizing a passage in Yerushalmi, he presents a number of options as to what is the perspective of the elders in their declaration: 

1. The murdered was a wayfarer who was ignored by the townsfolk, he resorted to crime in order to get by (perhaps stealing food) and suffered a calamity as a result. 

 2. The view of the sages of Israel was that their declaration was referring to the murderer. “It didn’t happen that he came into our hands and was allowed to go free. We did not see him and close an eye to his guilt.” 

3. The view of the sages of Bavel was that their declaration referred to the murdered. “It did not happen that he came into our hands and was sent off without an escort. We did not see him and let him leave without food.” 

 Rav Hirsch notes that when the victim is left lying as he was when killed, there can be a mockery of the authorities in one case, which is justified: when the person they left in need resorted to highway robbery and was killed by his victim in self defense. The leaders can be mocked because the slayer is completely innocent – his act was self-defense – and the slain man, who felt his only option was to try to steal from his victim, can also be viewed as blameless since his ordeal was exacerbated by the elders of the city who put no system in place to see that their Jewish community look after a wayfarer. 

 To summarize: their declaration is either referring to the killer – who may have been justified since he killed in self-defense, or it is the fault of the elders for his leaving town in a state where he’d resort to murder. “We did not commit this act.” 

 Or, as they are referring to the dead man, “Our hands did not spill his blood” – the deceased was either a victim of a wayfarer, or he was the poor man himself who tried to rob someone else (and was justifiably killed in self-defense), or he was the poor man, who seemed helpless and defenseless, and was murdered. 

 Interestingly, the word they use is spelled differently from how it sounds. They say ידינו לא שפכה את הדם הזה, our hands haven’t spilled this blood. The word is not written ש-פ-כ-ו (with a ו as we might expect), but ש-פ-כ-ה (with a ה) - as if in the singular, rather than referring to their plural hands. 

 Rabbi Hirsch references his commentary on Vayikra 21:5 in which the Torah spells the word יקרחה קרחה in the same manner, with an unexpected ה on יקרחה, where there should be a ו. That phrase refers to כהנים who are not to tear a bald spot in their head over the dead. This is a general prohibition for ALL of Israel (we saw this last week in 14:1) so it seems superfluous to tell the Kohanim! Hirsch explains that it’s not superfluous, because it is saying that Kohanim should not think their holiness allows them to channel a sign that champions the power of the god of the death force, or that this is an authentic religious symbol. 

 Similarly here, the elders by all right should be assumed to be blameless, and their declaration superfluous. But their failure - in not directing the people of the city how to care for wayfarers - is something of which they need to exculpate themselves, clearing themselves of the guilt of what has transpired. 

 His point is that the way it is written leaves an opening for doubt as to who the subject of the statement is. But the way it is read makes clear, IN VAYIKRA that it is a specific instruction for Kohanim, and here in SHOFTIM that it is the elders who need to declare their innocence of mistreating the traveler. 

 This whole episode is troubling, though, because what it does is give the elders an out from the possibility of guilt. Instead of owning up and saying “we failed,” the Torah tells them to say “It wasn’t us!” 

 Two interpretations suggest that the elders are actually going in a different route. 

 The Yerushalmi suggests that the blood we are not guilty of spilling is that of the murderer. True we didn’t physically spill the blood, and not that “we did not see,” but that we “chose not to see.” We ignored all the signs. We know the murderer is from our city. We bear that guilt. And it is because we did nothing to see what was developing in our midst, the kid which slid through the cracks… 

 Chasam Sofer isn’t as cryptic in his interpretation of this message: It’s true that our hands didn’t spill this blood. But it is also true that our eyes did not see it. How could it happen that this murder took place near our town? Because עינינו לא ראו לא השגיחו על חטאי בני עירנו we were not paying attention to the sins of the people of our town, and עי"ז חטאו ונתגלגל שנהרג סמוך לכאן because of that they sinned and the victim was killed close to here. 

 These interpretations do take responsibility. Not for the direct murder, but for fostering the environment or situation that allowed it to come about. 

 The letter that was published by so-called “80 Orthodox Rabbis” last week cast blame on Israel for much of what has transpired in the so-called humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Most of the signers don’t live in Israel, and I would imagine, get their news from sources that are somewhat biased against Israel (everyone has a bias, but it’s a question of how honest you are all the same, or how much you showcase one side while ignoring the other). 

 Thankfully there have been a number of responses (here are some):

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-864941 

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/413628 

https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/2025/08/a-rabbinic-response-to-a-misguided-call-for-moral-clarity/ 

https://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com/2025/08/an-open-letter-to-trojan-horse-rabbis.html 

https://www.jns.org/a-shameful-letter-in-the-name-of-orthodox-rabbis/

 It’s very easy to cast blame at a more powerful army, and to point to a war that has gone on “too long.” But when the objectives – very necessary objectives – haven’t been met, because Israel is dealing with an enemy hiding in urban areas, with an extensive tunnel system, the likes of which are hard to comprehend, and a reality of your own citizens who are hostages that you’re hoping to find, both alive and dead, while at the same time you’re fighting a PR war against PR geniuses who play to the world’s liberal, yet shifting, morality, of self-declared-morally-superior hypocrites who care about women (unless they’re Israeli or Jewish women), and suffering Arabs (but only if they can blame Israel for the suffering) and manufactured food crises (which are hard to sell to rational people who see fat adults next to the same 12 children with health or genetic conditions – proving that there isn’t starvation), anyone can become frustrated with the seeming never-ending “status quo.” 

 But Israel is not to blame for having a genocidal regime as its neighbor, who wants to kill every Jew in Israel, and has no problem torturing and killing their own people who don’t toe the line. All blame for all the suffering is on Hamas and their supporters – worldwide – for kowtowing to bigotry of low expectations. Who have given money, food, aid to these terrorists with no accountability and no expectations of bettering their society and the lives of their people. From the “UNWRA workers” (terrorists) to the “journalists” (terrorists) to the “everyman citizens” (terrorist sympathizer and aider/abetter) who held or holds hostages in their homes. 

 Is Israel to blame at all? The mouthpieces who try to justify October 7 2023 usually say Israel had it coming because of the way they’ve treated Arabs since 1948. Anyone who knows any history knows the Arabs in Israel have been killing Jews since well before 1948 (see 1929, 1936, and many other examples). And good people know that it was an unprovoked attack mostly against civilians in their homes and at the Nova Music Festival. 

 While the scale is much different and the parallel is not exactly the same, were we to apply the Eglah Arufah litmus test to the situation now, we could argue that what the elders were really aiming for was a kind of Teshuvah. We have to look at the large picture and somehow take ownership. Can we, or Israelis, or Israel’s government be blamed for the environment that allowed 10/7/23 to happen – where Israel’s defenses failed, Israeli society was at each other’s throats (over Yom Kippur 2023 and Supreme Court Reform), and we weren’t properly praying for peace in the land, and our collective actions caused God to hide His face? If yes, then those hands had a part in spilling the blood. If not, and it’s all on the terrorists and terrorist-citizens who participated in the murders, rapes, kidnapping and pillaging, then the sages could say “We did not spill this blood.” 

 We are now in Elul. Each of us has a personal task at hand in looking at every course of action in our life, wonder where we are are to blame for the direction it is headed, and make choices that will bring about better outcomes. 

 As for the events in Israel, we who wish for peace to reign continue to pray for the freedom of those unjustly held. We pray for the freeing of the minds of those who live for death. We pray for the safety of our precious soldiers on the front lines. We pray for the objectives to be met so everyone can have a chance to live in peace. And we hope for a future in which there need not be war. We pray that we can find the strength to fix what is in our power to fix, to help make God move the right parts into place for a lasting end to hostilities, that can only be for the betterment of the region and the world. 

 May that be so. Amen.