For a few days now, we’ve been exploring the laws surrounding the accidental killer who is exiled to a city of refuge. In that discussion, an important point can easily be missed: Exile is a sentence available to criminal courts, so it’s easy to think of it as a form of punishment. But the verses in the Torah describing the law of the accidental killer — as well as the discussion on today’s daf — suggest otherwise:
The assembly shall protect the killer from the blood-avenger, and the assembly shall restore him to the city of refuge to which he fled. (Numbers 35:25)
The stated purpose of exile is not to punish but to protect the killer from the blood-avenger, a relative of the deceased who is tempted to take justice into their own hands. Some blame is certainly apportioned to the killer, which is why he has to accept this unfortunate change in lifestyle, and why if he breaks his confinement the blood-avenger is entitled (or perhaps even commanded) to kill him. But the cities of refuge are ultimately designed to protect the killer far more than punish them.
The mishnah elaborates on the procedure for exiling someone in this circumstance:
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They would send two Torah scholars, in case the blood-avenger comes to kill him en route; and they speak to him.
The killer does not go into exile alone. Rather, two Torah scholars are appointed to accompany him to his new home.
They are not just company, but also a form of protection: If the blood-avenger shows up, they talk him down.
The rabbis also care about what is available to the exiled killer in the city of refuge:
We do not create these cities as small villages or as large cities, but as mid-sized towns.
The city of refuge becomes the entire world of the accidental killer. Therefore, a small village would be too confining. The rabbis want to provide an environment in which he can make a comfortable life for himself. But too large a city is a problem as well. The blood-avenger might well have business that brings him to a large city and then be tempted to take revenge. Therefore, to balance protection and life satisfaction, cities of refuge are mid-size settlements.
And what does the accidental killer do once he arrives in exile?
Rabbi Yitzhak says … make it so that he can have a livelihood.
This instinct to design a pleasant environment for the accidental killer soon becomes even more pronounced. A beraita teaches us:
If a Torah student is exiled, his teacher is exiled with him … If a teacher is exiled, his yeshiva is exiled with him.
This is an extraordinary statement. The rabbis are so committed to the well-being and continued growth of a student who accidentally kills somebody that they are prepared to send one of their own colleagues into exile to continue teaching him Torah. They are prepared to send an entire school of Torah students into exile so that they can continue their studies under a rabbi who has accidentally killed somebody. Maimonides, in his comprehensive code of law, poetically spells out the reason for this dramatic ruling:
Because the life of a knowledgeable person or seeker of knowledge without Torah study is like death.
On the one hand, this might be another manifestation of the rabbis’ deep love for their own profession, but perhaps it reflects a deeper insight about the nature of repentance and rehabilitation. The Talmud is telling us that the ability to study, and in particular the ability to dwell on ethical questions with expert guidance and the wisdom of one’s ancestral tradition, is a golden opportunity to get one’s life back on track after making a terrible mistake.
The concept of the city of refuge is the closest parallel in the rabbinic tradition to the modern carceral system. A few medieval responsa suggest that Jewish communities established prison-like institutions in Europe, but that was much later and there is much less discussion of how these systems worked. This chapter of Tractate Makkot, therefore, is an important site for rabbinic insights on incarceration. The differences between the rabbis’ vision and the system we currently run in most countries is stark.
On our daf alone, we have seen the enormous attention the rabbis pay to the safety of the killer, as well as his continued quality of life. Tragically, many modern carceral systems allow terrible violence and even deaths in prisons. We’ve also seen the lengths to which the rabbis go to make the confinement of the city of refuge as productive as possible, particularly in terms of allowing for work, continued study and spiritual growth. Advocates for incarcerated people consistently argue that libraries and other opportunities for education in prisons, currently woefully lacking, would transform inmates’ well-being and their opportunities after prison. As in so many cases, a mitzvah which has not been fulfilled for thousands of years, if ever, continues to offer wisdom on a pressing modern issue.
Read all of Makkot 10 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 18, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
