Flattery Will Get You

In this week's double parashah, we find one of several treatments scattered through the Torah of the subject of the cities of refuge. The passage dedicated to presenting those laws here is the longest and most detailed in the Torah. It spells out all the circumstances in which an accidental murderer (somewhat of an oxymoron in English) must flee to a city of refuge, evading the bloodavenger. It also spells out all the circumstances in which a person is to be considered a true murderer who must be put to death.

At the end of the passage, we are warned not to accept a bribe offered by the accidental or intentional murderer to deal lightly with him and excuse him with a lesser punishment. It reads:
Do not take a bribe for the life of the murderer, who has done evil deserving of death, rather, die he must.
Do not take a bribe for one who must flee to a city of refuge enabling him to return and dwell in the land before the death of the (high) priest.
Do not "flatter" the land which you are in, for the blood, it "flatters" the land, and the land shall not be atoned for the blood spilled upon it except by the blood of the one who spilled it.
Do not make impure the land upon which you are dwelling, for I reside in the land; I, Hashem, reside in the midst of the people of Israel.

Note the structure:
Directives:
Don't let the INTENTIONAL murderer off via bribe
Don't let the ACCIDENTAL murderer off via bribe
Reasoning:
Blood spilled INTENTIONALLY upon the land "flatters" the land, and there's no atonement except with (spilling) the blood of the murderer/spiller
Blood spilled ACCIDENTALLY upon the land renders it impure, thereby (it is implied) threatening Hashem's continued residence.

This identification of each verse with either an intentional or an accidental murderer is made by R. Meir Simchah of Dvinsk in his Meshech Hochmah.. There he has a beautiful explanation of the expiatory effect of dwelling in the Levitical cities of refuge upon the accidental murderer - he has polluted his soul, and "immersion" in the city of refuge, filled to the brim with Torah, taught by the Levi'im and compared to water, purifies him once the sun sets, that is, the Kohen Gadol dies, whose spiritual leadership is compared to the illumination of the sun.

I am more interested, however, in the word used to describe the effect of the actions of the intentional murderer upon the land. The word tahanifu, a hif'il rendering of the root het-nun-peh, is an unusual word. In Mishnaic Hebrew, it means "flatter", as I've translated above, but that hardly seems to be the meaning here. How does one "flatter" the land by spilling blood upon it?

The truth is that the commentators stretch to make sense out of this phrase. Some explain the work tahanifu as a synonym to t'tam'u in the next verse: make impure. Some translated as impute guilt. Rav S.R. Hirsch, along with the Malbim, explain that the root means "to be other than what one seems". Spilling blood, writes Rav Hirsch, causes the earth to be other than what it seems - it still seems fecund and ready to give forth its plenty, the rain falls, the sun shines, but it is not - the earth does not produce, as punishment for a society which does not demand justice on behalf of the blood spilled.

The Kli Yakar has a very picturesque explanation: The earth, he says, is insatiable. It swallows everything. Rain, leaves, death. A man who spills blood feeds, as it were, this insatiable appetite, in order that he be granted something in turn: the ability to continue to produce a living from the same earth, as though nothing happened. This "quid pro quo", where someone gives something inappropriate to the other in order to get something later, is the definition of "flattery".

All of these explanations were before Rav Shmuel David Luzzatto, and he rejected them all. He shows that, through a comparison of how the word is used in other places, such as in Yeshayahu, Yirmiyahu, Iyov and MIshlei, the root het-nun-peh must be explained as degeneracy. It is used elsewhere only in connection to the most severe sins, such as idolatry, sexual transgression and most especially murder. The intentional murderer has effaced the divine image within him, and is human only in appearance; the world is set right and balance and symmetry restored only when his blood has been spilled. Note the verse from Noach, which sets the conditions for renews human habitation upon the earth after the flood: shofech dam hadam ba'adam damo yishafech. Six words which set right the balance: The shedder of blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed.

When this is not done, when human degeneracy is not rooted out, but allowed to fester, even when that is done with what seems to be the best of intentions - then not only does a society degenerate, but we actually cause a concomitant degeneration in the land itself. It will not generate life for us, no matter how green it may appear (think of "kudzu" in the Southern U.S., or the poor soils of recently cleared lush green rainforest in Brazil).

Pollution, moral or spiritual, can be cleaned up. The accidental murderer has polluted his soul, but he can be immersed in a mikveh of Torah and restored. The intentional murder, as defined by halachah - two eyewitness and acknowledged warning of the consequences - has with his own hands uprooted his soul. By failing to pursue such crimes, we expose our society for what it is - one not just with feet of clay, but whose entire structure, seemingly sound, is merely clay, hardened earth with no trace of water. Earthenware absorbs into itself impurities, but does not set them free even at the highest temperature. When such a vessel becomes impure, it must be shattered to be formed anew.

The only answer to degeneracy is regeneration - to cause the earth to bring forth new forms of social life which are equipt with fully functioning moral autoimmune system, and do not tolerate such self-debasing actions in their midst. Such a life-form is the ideal community of the people Israel, living in their land by a Torah they have come to understand as the very basis of their lives. As we prepare to enter the land once more with Sefer Devarim, let us inspire ourselves by envisioning such a beautiful creature and believing that it is even now in the process of coming into being.