The GO'EL HADAM (Blood Avenger): Throwing a Biblical Wrench into the Rabbinic System

• In Event: Ancient and Medieval Biblical Reception

Abstract

Many scholars have interpreted the rabbinic project as one which seeks to construct an idealized legal system: not a system which could necessary exist in actuality, but rather one which sets up a theoretical model for the adjudication of law. This paper posits that the such an interpretation implies the rabbis’ self-identification with that of judges, highly ethical judges. This paper questions this notion of idealization and the aforementioned implications by analyzing a paradigmatic phenomenon of the un-ideal: namely, the phenomenon of accidental murder as discussed in biblical and rabbinic texts. By contrasting biblical and rabbinic discussions of this phenomenon and analyzing the discursive elements therein, this paper seeks to contribute to the notion of legal “idealization” by proposing that the rabbis are ultimately working to articulate a philosophy of punishment that is quite different from that found in the Pentateuch. In the critical case of the accidental murderer, rabbinic sympathies lie with the accidental murderer himself, who they defend and upon whom they bestow profound sympathy. Read in contrast to the biblical discourse on this subject, a philosophy of punishment emerges which is distinctly not ideal, one which challenges the very notion of the rabbis qua judges. The rabbis remove themselves from the role of adjudicator to that of victim, thus demonstrating the very limits and inherent inequalities built into the very heart of the rabbinic system.

Author

• Rachel Slutsky, Harvard University