Then Moshe set aside three cities on the eastern side of the Jordan… for one who kills another unintentionally… and he shall flee to one of these cities and live.
Devarim 4:41–42
Imagine the following conversation:
“What brings you here, my friend?”
“I drove too fast and I killed a person. And you?”
“I was working on my roof and the hammer slipped out of my hand. It fell and struck Reuven and killed him instantly. I should have been more careful.”
“And now we are both here, in this city we cannot leave. Only when the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, dies will we be free.”[1]
“Perhaps we should pray that he dies?”
“We cannot do that. He is a holy man — and his mother comes every week to bring us delicacies for Shabbat.”
A city of guilt
The only people who were truly innocent in the Cities of Refuge were the Levi’im. Everyone else was guilty of manslaughter — murder without intent.
It must have been a heavy, almost unbearable society. People who could hardly look themselves in the eyes, constantly asking how they had come to such a tragic moment. They were unable to leave the city unless they were willing to risk their lives at the hands of the go’el ha-dam, the redeemer of blood.[2]
Many must have walked around burdened with crushing guilt, unable to sleep at night, plagued by images of the child beneath the wheels of their car, or the friend struck down by a careless movement. Depression, nightmares, despair — perhaps even the wish to provoke the go’el ha-dam into killing them, as a form of indirect suicide to escape the torment of guilt.
Even when the Kohen Gadol died and they were permitted to leave, how could they face their former friends, who knew what had happened? Could they truly begin again?
Even today, someone who kills accidentally through negligence often lives in a private hell. What then must it have been like to live in a city filled with those who could neither be acquitted nor punished?
A therapeutic society
How did they live? Did they study in a kollel? Did they pay rent? Who supported them? The Mishnah tells us that either their families provided for them or they found work within the city.[3]
Most striking is the halakhic requirement that the teacher of the manslaughterer must accompany him into exile.[4]Torah does not abandon the sinner at the moment of his fall. On the contrary, it insists that he be surrounded by teaching, meaning, and moral language.
Perhaps the City of Refuge was not only a place of protection, but a place of inner repair — a space of enforced stillness in which one could confront human fallibility and responsibility. The presence of the Levites, teachers of Israel, infused the city with a spirit of reflection and hope. In this sense, they functioned almost like therapists of the soul.
The Torah thus refuses to allow guilt to become either denial or self-destruction. It insists that guilt must be lived with, worked through, transformed.
Moshe’s sudden urgency
At the beginning of Devarim, Moshe delivers long and painful rebukes to the people. He reminds them of their failures, their rebellions, their missed opportunities.
And then, suddenly, the Torah interrupts:
Then Moshe set aside three cities on the eastern side of the Jordan… for one who kills another unintentionally… and he shall flee to one of these cities and live.
Why here? Why interrupt a moral discourse with urban planning?
Because Moshe senses the emotional state of the people. They are exhausted, fragile, anxious. They are about to leave the desert and enter history. There will be building, competition, friction, accidents. Tempers will flare. People will fail.
Moshe knows that if he only rebukes them without offering a structure for moral recovery, he will break them.
So he pauses — and offers them refuge.
The theology of refuge
The City of Refuge is not only for the killer. It is for society. It prevents cycles of revenge. It restrains rage. It introduces time into tragedy — time to cool, to grieve, to reflect.
Psychologists tell us that unprocessed guilt easily mutates into either aggression or despair. Viktor Frankl wrote that suffering without meaning leads to psychological collapse, but suffering integrated into meaning can be endured.[5]The City of Refuge is a structure for transforming guilt into responsibility, and responsibility into moral growth.
Philosophers have noted that guilt is not merely a private emotion but a social force. Hannah Arendt warned that societies collapse when guilt is denied or displaced rather than acknowledged and integrated.[6]
Moshe therefore interrupts his rebuke to insert mercy. Not cheap mercy — but structured mercy. Mercy that demands accountability, time, separation, and reflection.
Only then can rebuke be heard.
Refuge before judgment
In the middle of his fiery warnings, Moshe changes course. He realizes that before people can hear judgment, they need to know that failure is survivable. That there is a place to go when one falls. That tragedy does not have to be final.
This explains Moshe’s urgency.He could not continue without first creating hope.
Notes
[1] See Mishnah Makkot 2:6 and Rambam, Hilchot Rotzeach u-Shemirat Nefesh 7:7.
[2] Bamidbar 35:19; see also Rashi ad loc.
[3] Mishnah Makkot 2:8.
[4] Babylonian Talmud Makkot 10a.
[5] Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.
[6] Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment.
