Makos 12b.

Shiur by Alex Heppnheimer

Special thanks to Alex Heppenheimer and Eli Chitrik.

We went over the story (mostly previously told in Sanhedrin) of how Yoav ended up holding on to the horns of the mizbeach – and the whole “cycle of violence”.

 

1) First, Avner kills Asahel (Yoav’s brother) who had been chasing him

with intent to kill (leading to the question: was Avner justified in doing so, or should he have attempted to disable Asahel rather than killing him? And did his well-placed blow prove that he knew exactly what he was doing?). Then – count #1 against Yoav – he kills Avner (was he justified in doing so, as the goel hadam for his brother Asahel?).

2) Next, years later comes count #2: Yoav kills Amasa (who had been sent by David to gather the army but had delayed in doing so: was Yoav justified since Amasa disobeyed the king, or was Amasa correct because he didn’t want to interrupt the chachamim’s beginning of a new masechta?)

3) Finally – count #3 – Yoav joins Adoniyahu in his abortive attempt to become king against David’s wishes (thus making Yoav a mored-b’malchus). David’s last testament to Shlomo includes that he should punish Yoav for these killings (David himself was never able to do so, because he needed Yoav too much).

So Yoav had quite a few people possibly gunning for him (for the above mentioned reasons):

• the Sanhedrin
• Avner’s and Amasa’s goalei hadam
• and Shlomo

The Rambam, presumably based on our Gemara, says that only the mizbeach in the Beis Hamikdash protects a rotzeach, and then 1) only if he’s standing on its roof and 2) is a kohen performing the avodah. However, he then adds two things that aren’t so obvious: 3) that it protects only a shogeg and not a mezid; and 4) the mizbeach protects him even if he’s only next to it, and even if he’s a zar, from the king killing him according to din malchus (extra-judiciously), or the Sanhedrin killing him based on horaas sha’ah.

Which leads to a lot of discussion. For one thing, the Kesef Mishneh asks: if so, then Yoav didn’t make any mistakes – he was trying to save himself from din malchus! Also, he asks how Tosafos can say that ultimately Yoav was able to “beat the rap” on the killings and was executed only because of count #3, when the pesukim clearly state that it was because of counts #1 and #2 (Avner and Amasa)?

On that last question, Kesef Mishneh says that maybe indeed a mored bemalchus isn’t protected by the mizbeach.

That in turn leads to a question discussed by R. Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (Seridei Eish – mentioned in the Shiur points a couple of weeks ago (see here in English Hebrew), and here : why would din malchus be more lenient than mored bemalchus? Shouldn’t it be the other way around, since the latter is a judgment call on the king’s part, and he can overlook the person’s disobedience if he wants?

he answers with an interesting chiddush: in a case of din malchus – where the Sanhedrin couldn’t convict the guy because of technicalities (such as a lack of edim vehasra’ah) but where we know he’s guilty (or in our case, where Yoav claims to be a shogeg, because he thinks he was entitled to kill Avner and Amasa) – the king becomes the goel hadam. And so, just as the mizbeach protects from the goel hadam, it protects from din malchus too. Whereas a mored bemalchus is guilty al pi Torah (all the more so according to Tosafos in a number of places in Shas, that he has to be judged by the Sanhedrin), so the mizbeach doesn’t protect him, just as it doesn’t protect any other person who is chayav misah.

Now, last week it was mentioned that the Yerushalmi says that indeed Yoav didn’t make a mistake – when it says he ran to the “corners of the mizbeach,” it means the Sanhedrin. The Mirkeves Hamishneh explains: he did actually hold on to the corners, but his purpose was to get out of the jurisdiction of din malchus (as per Rambam) and put himself under the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin.

Then, he figured either he’d be able to escape, or that he’d be able to convince the Sanhedrin that he had good reasons for the killings. (And if worse came to worst and the Sanhedrin didn’t buy those reasons, at least his “estate planning” – as discussed previously – would have worked.)

 

What happened in the end, though, was that he realized that the king could send the goalei hadam against him – and then even if he climbed onto the (roof of the) mizbeach, he’s still a zar (and it’s the wrong mizbeach anyway) – so at that point he realized the only thing he can do is make sure David’s curse against him is lifted (and placed onto Shlomo and his descendants, as we learned in Sanhedrin), and then at that point he was ready to give in, leave the mizbeach, and let Benayahu get him.

This also explains why the Gemara doesn’t add another mistake of his, that (per Rambam) the mizbeach protects only a shogeg and not a mezid: he argued that indeed he was a shogeg.

*The Gemara then goes on to tell about the 3 mistakes the Sar Shel Romi will make in the future: attempting to escape to בצרה (rather than בצר), and overlooking the fact that he’s a mezid (not a shogeg) and that he’s an angel (not a human).

There is a vort that all three of these mistakes are refuted in the very pesukim where בצר and the other two arei miklat are designated. The Torah says:

אשר ירצח את רעהו בבלי דעת… את בצר… וזאת התורה אשר שם משה לפני בני ישראל.

“בבלי דעת” – not a mezid; “את בצר” – not בצרה; “לפני בני ישראל” – not malachim!

The Chasam Sofer gives a deeper explanation of this Gemara.

The three arei miklat that Moshe designated represent three reasons that Hashem is willing to forgive our aveiros. (1) בצר means “reduction” (as in בציר מהכי), and it represents the fact that we Jewish people are humble. And ראובן, ראו מה בין בני לבן חמי – look at the difference in this regard between the Jews and the goyim. (2) For those Jews who do feel proud – רמות, “heights” – that can be attributed to גד, the fact that they have good mazel. (3) We are in גולן בבשן, in galus בין שיני אריה, between the teeth of the lions.

 

Now, the Sar Shel Romi – who also wears lots of other hats: הוא שטן, הוא יצר הרע, הוא מלאך המות – figures to use the first of these. He’s a very humble fellow, after all – like a persistent shnorrer, he’s learned to set aside his self-respect and keep bugging us! So he tries to “run away to בצר.”

His mistakes, though, are: (1) his “humility” is the wrong kind. Ours is to increase the glory of Hashem (represented by the last hei of His name), while his is to decrease it – to “בצר” the “ה”. Thus he winds up in בצרה. (2) Sure, some of us are meizidim, but after all, it’s he who’s convincing us to do so! Which makes him the mezid and us the shogegim. (3) All malachim are humble – they all have bittul to Hashem – so what does he think makes him special? And with all of that, he’s defeated.