opinion
Survivor’s Guilt and the
Atonement of the Innocent
BY CHAIM STEINMETZ
M y friend Johnny was lucky. He lived in a
Belarussian village near the Lithuanian
border, and in 1941, the day before the German
invasion of the Soviet Union, he was conscripted
into the Red Army.

Because of this, Johnny was taken east just
ahead of the S.S. killing machine. He survived the
Holocaust, but his father and siblings did not. Until
the end of his life, Johnny would wake up in the
middle of the night, tormented by the question of
why he survived into old age while his brothers and
sister were murdered in their teens.

Survivor’s guilt is so powerful that it doesn’t
weaken with the passage of time. Johnny was still
grappling with the murder of his family during the
Holocaust as a 95-year-old great-grandfather.

Many survivors were burdened by similar feel-
ings. Primo Levi described survivor’s guilt this way:
“Are you ashamed because you are alive in place
of another? And in particular, of a man more gener-
ous, more sensitive, more useful, wiser, worthier of
living than you?”
Survivor’s guilt has been the subject of multiple
studies. And these types of guilt feelings are not
unique to Holocaust survivors; others who experi-
ence the deaths of colleagues, such as soldiers or
survivors of accidents, experience similar feelings
of guilt. Bereaved parents are often afflicted by
guilt, wondering why they couldn’t do more for
their children. Sometimes it is the innocent who call
out for atonement.

Our Torah reading includes an unusual atone-
ment ritual, the Eglah Arufah, which offers insights
into the meaning of psychological guilt. A dead
body is found, and the murder remains unsolved.

The elders of the nearest city then perform a mul-
tifaceted ritual in response. First, a calf is decapi-
tated; afterward, the elders wash their hands and
declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor
did our eyes see it done.” Then the Kohanim call
out “Absolve, O Lord, Your people Israel whom You
redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the
innocent remain among Your people Israel.”
This ritual of Eglah Arufah is extremely puzzling.

Why does an unsolved murder require atonement?
And why do the elders have to declare their inno-
cence? Some commentaries see this ritual as a publicity
stunt that shapes the communal mood. The Rambam
14 SEPTEMBER 8, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
offers the fascinating view that the purpose of the
Eglah Arufah “is evident. … As a rule, the investiga-
tion, the procession of the elders, the measuring and
the taking of the heifer make people talk about it;
and by making the event public, the murderer may
be found out, and he who knows of him, or has heard
of him, or has discovered him by any clue, will now
name the person that is the murderer.”
This explanation doesn’t see the Eglah Arufah
ritual as purposeful in itself; instead, its goal is to
draw attention to the unsolved murder and get
people to report any information they may have to
the leaders of the community.

But other commentaries take a very different
view. They see the Eglah Arufah as directly related
to questions of innocence and responsibility, and
they comment on two aspects. First, they analyze
what the elders’ statement, “Our hands did not
shed this blood” might be referring to. As Rashi
puts it, “Would it enter anyone’s mind that the
elders of the court are suspected of bloodshed?”
Survivor’s guilt is so
powerful that it doesn’t
weaken with the
passage of time.

The Talmud Yerushalmi offers two opinions as
to what this declaration means. One opinion is the
elders are declaring that they did not let the mur-
derer go free and fail to bring him to justice. This
declaration is an acknowledgment of one type of
social responsibility for the murder: The elders
must promote law and order, and be vigilant in
locating and prosecuting criminals.

The other opinion in the Yerushalmi is that the
elder’s declaration is about the victim. They are
declaring that they did not overlook the victim,
and did not fail to offer him appropriate food and
protection to embark safely on his journey. It is a
communal responsibility to take care of visitors,
one that can be a matter of life and death.

A fascinating view is offered by the Malbim and
Rashi’s commentary to the Talmud. Both see the
declaration of communal responsibility as being
about charity. If a community fails to feed the poor,
the indigent will be driven by hunger into a life
of crime. In order to obtain food, these indigent
criminals will be willing to kill or be killed. The dead
body is either that of the victim of a crime or a
criminal killed in self-defense; but either way, if the
community had provided for the hungry to begin
with, this death would never have occurred.

These are three ways that the community could
possibly bear responsibility for the victim’s death.

But now a far more important question needs to be
asked: Is this Eglah Arufah meant as an indictment
of the community, or its exoneration? The very ritual
of the Eglah Arufah is self-contradictory: The elders
wash their hands and proclaim innocence, while the
Kohanim pray for atonement, which implies guilt.

Ibn Ezra views the Eglah Arufah as an indict-
ment of the community, for two reasons. First, he
says that the community “erred and did not guard
the dangerous roads.” And then he adds that the
shocking death indicates that God is highlighting
a moral failure in the city, “because if the city had
not committed a similar deed, then the murder of
a person near their city would not have occurred.

God’s thoughts are deep and infinitely beyond our
comprehension.” This understanding sees the Eglah Arufah as a
response to moral failure. The community might
not have committed the murder, but they are still
responsible for it. They should have instituted poli-
cies that could have prevented this crime.

Others take a very different view. The medieval
commentary of the Minchat Yehuda says the Eglah
Arufah ritual expresses the community’s inno-
cence, and they are in effect declaring that “just as
the calf is flawless and the ground is flawless, so
too we are without flaw and innocent of this sin.”
Only the murderer is guilty of the crime.

But this view is puzzling. Ultimately, the Eglah
Arufah appears to be a sacrifice, and the Kohanim
are asked to offer the community atonement. But if
the community is completely innocent, why should
they be required to perform a ritual of atonement?
The answer to this question brings us back to
survivor’s guilt. Even without guilt, one can have
guilt feelings. And for this reason, there is an obli-
gation to bring an Eglah Arufah, because even the
innocent need atonement.

The purpose of the Eglah Arufah is to bring
meaning to those guilt feelings. By killing the calf,
the community reenacts the cold-blooded mur-
der, and the initial feelings of failure, shame and