Here’s the thing: we all make mistakes, sometimes with harmful consequences for ourselves and others. Mostly we don’t make these mistakes out of ill will or an evil nature, but simply because we are human beings, inclined to error and imperfection by our very nature. Our relationships are messy; we try; we do our best, but often there is still hurt, still harm, still wrong even. What are we to do with ourselves and each other in light of this pervasive imperfection?
There is a choice. You can take these parts of us that don’t measure up, that sometimes do the “wrong” thing despite meaning well -- so you can take these parts and feed them to the dogs -- allow the harsh climate of our inner critics to hold sway and attack them. Or you can provide them with some shelter, a place of refuge and acceptance and compassion.
The Torah opts for the second alternative in creating the ir miklat, the city of refuge, for the accidental killer. Such a killer is an extreme example of how our fallibility as humans can cause great harm, and the Torah instructs us that we should be careful to take care of people who make such grave mistakes, that we need to create and provide easy access to places where such humans can take shelter from the go’el hadam, the victim’s avenging relative.
We have a similar choice on a daily basis internally. How do we treat the parts of us that mess things up, that make mistakes and don’t do everything “right,” often causing accidental harm? These parts carry a heavy burden of guilt and shame. Our tendency is to allow our internal critics -- our own personal go’el hadam -- to harshly attack them, causing still more pain and shame.
But there is another way -- to cultivate a kind of ir miklat inside us, a place -- perhaps our heart -- where we can send these imperfect parts to go and rest from the perpetual attack of the go’el hadam -- a place of forgiveness, a place where there is permission to be human in all our messiness and still be held in God’s love. Because the cities of refuge, according to the Torah, were Levite cities, and the Levi’im, scattered around the country in their own cities, were a tribe without land, a tribe whose inheritance was God Himself, a people whose lives were fully dedicated to facilitating the connection between heaven and earth in the Temple, and perhaps also in these mini-temple cities of theirs, places of sanctuary for the vulnerable.
And so part of what this ir miklat provides is a reminder of our never severed connection to the divine, of how we are held, even in our worst moments, in the face of our largest mistakes and human imperfections, even then, how we are still held in love in a sheltered container. This is the message of the ir miklat, that God continues to embrace and shelter us in our errors. We can find such refuge at all times inside us, in returning to our heart, returning to our connection to the divine.
Perhaps at this moment you have a part that is shouting loudly, angrily -- but those parts need to improve! They can’t just be sheltered; they have to be judged and criticized in order to stop being so terrible, to learn to be better. They need to face the consequences of their actions, not to be coddled in a compassionate shelter. Let them out of that city so we can have a word with them! These words are from the go’el hadam, your own harsh internal avenger, and the go’el hadam does have his place. He is not evil. Note that his name includes the root for ge’ulah, redemption. What he wants is to save you -- to make you better -- and also to save the world, to bring justice and redemption to the world. That is all good, and we can admire his good intentions and passion.
But harshness is not the way to deal with these vulnerable down-trodden parts; they already know they aren’t perfect and beating them up further does nothing but send them into a cave of shame. Let the go’el hadam take up a chair and sit outside your internal ir miklat. Let him watch what happens to these imperfect parts as they are taken in by the welcoming shelter of this Levite city. And let them see how God is present here, how God is called forth to be with us in our worst moments, how in our very human struggles and mistakes, we somehow create a tunnel to reach another plane, how we surrender and open to the divine in a new way, and how, here, above all, in this city of shelter, here is where the ultimate ge’ulah happens. Here we are redeemed in our very messiness; here we learn that love surpasses such error and still holds us, just exactly as we are. If this is not redemption, what is.
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