[Avodah] It's not our fault

[Micha Berger]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 10:45:48PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote:
> I've heard the same explanation of this many times from many sources. In
> the words of "The Midrash Says", Devarim pg 242:

>> The Elders were declaring that they were not even indirectly
>> responsible for the crime: "We have never dismissed any
>> stranger from our city without food (so that he might have
>> been forced to steal for food and was killed in return), or
>> without accompaniment (so that he might have gone unprotected
>> on a dangerous road)."

> How can the zekeinim have been so sure?
> 
> Is it really beyond their imagination that some stranger might have passed
> through unnoticed?

Does it say that unnoticed strangers are included?

The gemara (Sotah 46b) says (original at https://www.sefaria.org/Sotah.46b.9 ):
    Would it cross our minds that BD were murderers?

    Rather [they are saying]: He did not come to us and we dismissed him
    without food. We didn't see him and leave him without accompaniment.

My translation matches the TMS's, minus their parenthetic comments. (Which
I will now assume is the author's insertions, rather than part of the
medrash.)

The two phrases "lo ba leyadeinu" and "vera'inhu" seem to me to mean
the BD are saying that the didn't neglect anyone they knew of. That not
knowing the person was in town would be one of the reasons they wouldn't
be guilty.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man is capable of changing the world for the
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   better if possible, and of changing himself for
Author: Widen Your Tent      the better if necessary.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF          - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning