Q&A: Avenger of the Blood
Avenger of the Blood
Question
The Talmud in Makkot says that every accidental killer is assigned two Torah scholars to accompany him, so that if the avenger of the blood comes, they will calm him down and tell him: don’t kill him, he did it by mistake. The Talmud asks: “Did the act come about through error? Obviously!” After all, if it had been intentional, they would kill him.
If a child comes home with an injury to his leg, his father bandages the wound, gives him a kiss, and says, “By the wedding it’ll pass.” Should the mother get up and shout, “Obviously! Of course by the wedding it’ll pass”?
The whole point is to calm the child, not to tell him something new. Same thing here: the avenger of the blood knows it was accidental, but in the heat of the moment they try to calm him down and present the story to him so he’ll think again.
Answer
It really is difficult. Given the force of the difficulty, I thought perhaps the Talmud here assumes that the avenger of the blood sees what he is doing as a commandment, and is not acting only because his heart is inflamed. Therefore the role of the Torah scholars—to tell him that it was accidental and try to influence him—would not help, because the avenger of the blood also knows this, and still comes to kill him.
See here, where he brings proofs that the law of the avenger of the blood is not merely a dispensation because of the heat of passion:
http://www.daat.ac.il/encyclopedia/value.asp?id1=2944
It seems to me that this Talmudic passage is also evidence for that.
Note that this is said even according to Rabbi Akiva (Makkot 12a), whose view is the halakhic ruling: that it is only optional for the avenger of the blood, and not a commandment.