From the Chassidic Masters

The Torah instructs that judges and officers are to be appointed “in all your city gates”—wherever Jews live; but that the “cities of refuge” are to be established only in the land of Israel. Why this distinction between judgement and atonement, between the law and refuge from retribution? To explain this dichotomy, the Lubavitcher Rebbe examines the deeper significance of justice and repentance, the spiritual processes involved in judging and atoning, and the locale of the “cities of refuge” in the terrain of time and in the geography of the soul.