Sacred Havens?
We know that other cultures considered holy spaces to be safe havens or refuges for wrongdoers – everywhere from Sumer (more than a thousand years before Avraham) through to the code of Hammurabi (same time as Avraham) – through Greek, Roman, Christian (and many other) societies as well. In all of these cultures, temples or altars were places of asylum, a place where divine, and not civil, justice systems ruled.
But Judaism was different than all of these, was it not?! After all, the Torah (unlike every other society for several millennia) commands that there are not separate laws for natives and for strangers. There are no special courts for commoners vs aristocrats, or normal people vs priests. And there are no places where the law is different or suspended.
It is quite distinctive: unlike virtually every other pre-modern legally-mature society we know of, G-d’s House in Judaism has the same legal system as Joe’s House.
Why not? Is it that Judaism does not delegate our responsibility to do justice to G-d? Since G-d commands we, the people, to do justice, fairly, and everywhere, does this reflect a higher level of belief in the importance of human justice?
Does it assign us more responsibility?
But…
If the above is true, that there is no special place of refuge for wrongdoers, how can we explain:
When one party schemes against another and kills through treachery (arum), you shall take that person from My altar to be put to death.
Doesn’t this seem strange? Why would a person go to an altar for mercy?
The Torah does not (anywhere else at least) suggest that going to the altar is a way to gain mercy or avoid legal consequences for one’s actions. So why would a person do that?
We know that two people tried it anyway! (1Kings 1:50) Anonijah grabs the horns of the altar, assuming he could not be killed there. And 2:28 Joab tries to claim asylum in the same way. In both cases, Solomon acts without seemingly giving consideration to the altar as a place of refuge (he deals with Adonijah, and kills Joab where he stood). Which suggests that if even Adonijah and Joab might have been influenced by the non-Jewish idea of the altar as a place of refuge, Solomon clearly did not accept the principle.
Can we can assume that Solomon was in the right, and the altar had no special status as somehow being under divine protection and thus immune from normal law?
So why is this verse this way, you shall take that person from My altar to be put to death? It is such a strange and seemingly-unnecessary formulation, after all.
Is the Torah conceding that somehow people might think that non-Jewish notions of gaining refuge at the altar are in fact valid? Or is there a better explanation?
Is Gan Eden the Source?
Consider the specific words: The murderer is someone who kills using arum. And we know that “The snake was the most arum of every animal.” (Gen 3:1) And we also know that the snake “killed” the old Adam and Eve, “on the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.” (Gen 2:17). So the snake is someone who killed with arum, with guile!
And what happens to the snake? “On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life.” (3:14). The snake loses the ability to ever climb higher than the earth! It will never be able to elevate itself beyond constant ground-contact, only able to reach the heel of humanity.
Why is elevation important? Because the entire purpose of the altar, the mizbeach, was to elevate the earth toward the sky!
Which suggests that perhaps
When one party schemes against another and kills through treachery (arum), you shall take that person from My altar...
Comes directly from Eden! Could the verse could be understood as:
When someone kills through arum [like the snake], then they are no more able to elevate upward than the snake is! ?
Is Sotah a Counterproof?
Is it correct that Judaism does not consider the altar a place of divine mercy or justice? Don’t we have a specific ritual where guilt and innocence are specifically determined on the grounds of G-d’s house?
After all, isn’t Sotah performed at the Mikdash? And isn’t that ritual at least mystical if not downright supernatural?
To answer this, we need to compare Torah Law to the rest of the world. And it turns out that there is a big difference: In Trial By Fire (Ancient India), Trials by Water or Fire (European Dark Ages through to the 18th century), and other trials found in African and Aztec and even Ancient Egypt (weighing a heart against a feather) the person is judged guilty when events happen normally. Only supernatural intervention means that a person is innocent.
But with Sotah, drinking some muddy water would not normally lead to disfigurement. On the contrary, Judaism’s presumption is innocence (requiring divine intervention to kill). For Sotah, divine intervention is needed to prove guilt, not innocence. Every other society presumed guilt (divine intervention to save).
And, of course, Sotah is the law for all people, all places. It is just the ritual that is supposed to happen in G-d’s House. Which still leaves us with that formidable question: why does it have to happen in that place, in the Mikdash?
Could it be that the reason Sotah happens in G-d’s house is to reinforce a separate point: that suspicion of infidelity in a marriage is parallel to suspicion of idolatry in our relationship with G-d? That there is a link so foundational that it needs to be reinforced?
Doesn’t the Torah offer many other linkages between our marriages to our relationship with G-d?