Why Should We Help a Stranger? A Powerful Lesson From Parshat Shoftim

“Why do you do it?” people often ask us. “Let him take care of himself,” they say. “Maybe his family should help him, or his close friends. But it isn’t your responsibility.”

We hear the same questions again and again. What drives us to help people we only met yesterday? Why drop everything and rush to help someone whose name we barely know? And why, even when a person brought the trouble upon himself through his own choices, are we still there for him?

Why fly all the way to Annapurna to bring home a young man who has fallen ill? Why accompany a frightened young woman to the hospital? Why visit a prisoner who made a serious mistake? “Do you even know these people?” people ask. “Don’t you have children of your own to worry about?”

Who Is Responsible for the Stranger?

In this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, we encounter a deeply unsettling case. A man is found dead in a field, and no one knows who killed him. At first glance, it seems like a tragic but straightforward situation. He must be buried with dignity, and then life must move on.

But the Torah stops everything.

Five elders from the Great Sanhedrin go out to determine which city is closest to the place where the victim was found. The elders of that city, together with the Kohanim, then go to a rugged valley, perform the ceremony of the eglah arufah, wash their hands, and publicly declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see.”

What do these elders have to do with the murder? Does anyone actually suspect that the respected leaders of the city killed this man?

Our Sages offer a striking explanation. The elders are essentially declaring that they did not see this man and send him on his way without food or accompaniment. They did not allow him to leave alone and unprotected.

Suddenly, the Torah is not asking only, “Who killed him?” It is also asking: Who saw him before that? Who could have stopped for a moment? Who could have given him something for the journey? Who could have accompanied him? Who allowed him to go on alone?

When Someone Else’s Pain Becomes Our Responsibility

Perhaps this is the answer to the question we are asked so often. Why fly all the way to Annapurna for a young man we hardly know? Why rush to the hospital with a traveler we met only yesterday? Why visit someone who made serious mistakes?

Because there are moments when the question is not whether it is technically “our responsibility.” The question is whether we saw, whether we heard, and whether we knew that someone was out there alone.

The Torah teaches us that our responsibility toward another person in distress does not necessarily end where his own choices begin. Even when someone has made mistakes, even when he has gotten himself into trouble, and even when, to some extent, his own decisions brought him to the place where he now finds himself, he still does not stop being our brother.

We Cannot Simply Look Away

There is a bond of mutual responsibility that connects one Jew to another, a thin but extraordinarily strong thread that has held our people together throughout the generations. And that is why we cannot always say, “It has nothing to do with me.”

We cannot close our eyes to another person’s distress. May we always merit to open our hearts, to truly see those around us, and never to ignore a cry for help, whether great or small.