The murder of a Jew is a terrible tragedy which is compounded when the perpetrator might be another Jew. The parsha of eglah arufah, the axed heifer, addresses a situation where a corpse is found lying in the open. We have no idea who the murderer is. The Torah requires that the elders of the town nearest to the corpse perform a public ritual in which they proclaim that they are not responsible, neither by neglect nor by indifference, for the tragedy of this person’s death. The primary purpose of this parsha is to convey an important message: We are…
