Parshas Shoftim

In this week's parsha, the Torah tells us about egla arufa, the calf that must be slaughtered when a victim is found murdered outside a city, without any clue as to who the murderer is. The Torah says that when sacrificing the calf, the elders of the city say "yodeinu lo shafcha es hadam hazeh" - our hands have not spilled this blood. Rashi explains that they mean to say "we did not fail to feed him, and we did not fail to escort him on his way out of the city, and we are therefore not responsible for his death". Now, the part about not feeding him is understandable: if a person does not eat, he will eventually die of starvation. But the part about not being melaveh him seems a bit strange: why do the elders of the city have to declare that they were melaveh him? It seems to imply that if he were not escorted out of the city, they would be directly responsible for his death. Why? How could a mere lack of accompaniment be grounds to hold someone responsible for a murder clearly carried out by someone else?

The answer is that there is more to accompanying someone than meets the eye. When you accompany someone, you are not merely "walking him to the door"; rather, you are showing him that you care about him, that you are with him wherever he goes. However, when a person leaves a city without levoya, he feels abandoned and alone, disconnected from his social network. He can become depressed, thinking that people do not care about him. Such a person is much more likely to succumb to the dangers that lurk on the road, with fatal results. That is why the elders of the city have to declare that the victim was escorted out of their city - because if not, they could indeed have (however indirectly) brought about his demise.

There is an important lesson for us to learn here: the importance of being part of a tzibur, part of a group of friends, part of a social network. We are in a long and bitter galus, with many trials and tribulations, which we can only overcome as part of a group. If we try to make it alone, we are doomed to fail; but if we band together with our friends, we will be mechazeik one another, and we can succeed beyond our wildest expectations.