Never Alone

Part of the mitzvah of eglah arufah, which is triggered by the finding of a dead body between cities, is that the elders of the closest city must take an oath that they did not shed the blood of the deceased. The Gemara (Sotah 46b) is puzzled about this requirement.

The Gemara explains that the oath is required not because they are suspected of the visitor’s death but because they may have indirectly caused his murder by sending him out of the city unaccompanied. From which the Gemara derives another rule: Those who are accompanied do not come to harm. (The power of realizing that even Jews of a foreign city are concerned about a coreligionist strengthens a person and protects him on the way.)

Last week, I had the opportunity to savor the feeling that a frum Jew is never completely alone and always has others upon whom he call for help.

My wife and I decided to stop on the way back from the hakamos matzeivah for her father in California to visit a beloved former neighbor who can no longer make the trip to Israel. And I extended that stopover another day to attend the chasunahs of children of two close friends — one in Lakewood and the other in Passaic — the next night.