This week’s parashah Emor discusses the various boundaries for the priest, the cohanim such as their behavior, clothes, diet, customs, how to present their offerings, their service to God, and their integrity; they had to be distinct from the others to fulfill the specific role that was holy to the Eternal. After speaking of the sanctity of leaders and those who hold a special position in service to God, it discusses the sanctification of time for all Israel, including the stranger among us. It discusses the Moedim, the Appointed Times, beginning with Shabbat, Yom Teruah (Rosh Hashanah), Yom Kippur, and the Shalosh Regalim, the three Pilgrimage Festivals – Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Later, God commands the Israelites to bring olive oil to light the menorah in the sanctuary. The ingredients and location of the loaves of bread in the sanctuary are explained. Finally, instructions are given against cursing or blasphemy, murder, mutilation or bodily harm, which concerns all people.
These verses and chapters can become heavy and meaningless for our time, since, without the Mishkan or Temple, the sacrifices and priestly customs are lost. I want to mention a letter to the Jews of Corinth by Rav Shaul in 2 Corinthians 1:20: “For in God is found the YES to all of God’s promises and therefore it is through God that we answer ‘Amen’ to give praise to God.” I believe Rav Shaul was inspired by the prophet Habakkuk in chapter 2:3: “For the vision is still for an appointed time and it speaks of the end, and does not lie; though it seems slow, wait for it, for it will surely come, it will not come late.”
With that in mind, let’s look our haftarah portion in Ezekiel 44 beginning in verse 15: “But the priests, the Levites, sons of Tzadok, who kept charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister to me, and they shall stand before me to offer to me fat and blood, says the LORD GOD.” Then he reminds the priests of the instructions described in Emor, such as entering the sanctuary and approaching the table of the Eternal to minister to Him (v. 16), how they were to dress and for which occasion (v.17-19), their care to their appearance (about their the hair on their heads v. 20), not to drink wine in the service to God (v. 21); how to choose a wife (v. 22), how to deal with the dead (v. 25-26), how to present the korbanot and use them for personal consumption (v. 27,29,30); about the type of food they can eat (v.31), about earthly possessions (V. 28), and he adds their purpose in life – to teach and judge (v. 23 and 24) something intuited that they did in the Torah as leaders, but not explicitly ordered by the Eternal.
So, let’s analyze the priestly lineage from beginning to end. We realize that, over time, there were many violations of the Torah’s instructions regarding the priesthood, and that, although it was an “inherited” privilege, it did not imply that it was eternal, because I believe the Torah refers more to Aaron’s qualities than to the simple transmission of DNA. Initially, Aaron was instituted as a priest by order of the Eternal and at the hand of Moses (Exodus 28:1). Then, Vayikra chapters 8 -10 describe how Aaron and his sons were ordained as priests. Nadav and Abihu had no children (Bamidbar 2:4) while Aaron’s other sons, Eleazar and Itamar, lived. God commanded Moses to fortify them and give them the priesthood as a perpetual statute (Shemot 29:9).
If we look at Aaron’s qualities, he might not have been the most ideal person to serve as high priest, since the demands of the position (such as holiness, honor, and commitment) were not necessarily his innate qualities. For 83 years, he lived in hiding in Egypt. During the greatest spiritual moment in history, when God revealed Himself to Moses at Mount Sinai, Aaron coauthored the sin of the Golden Calf; he collected gold and jewels, built the idol, and allowed the debauchery of the celebration. He remained silent while mourning the loss of two of his sons, and he spoke ill of Moses. Without taking away from the fact that he was a man of great faith, Aaron did make mistakes, especially as a leader. However, there was a different spirit within him – he was a man of peace, but this could possibly have been his greatest weakness. By seeking peace, he avoided conflict, which caused him to make mistakes.
The Bible says that as a peacemaker, he was the spokesman for Moses before Pharaoh; then we see that by the hand of Aaron (something that took great emunah and bitachon), God worked three wonders in Egypt: turned his rod into a serpent which then ate the Egyptian’s serpent, he struck the waters of the Nile so that it turned into blood and started the plague of frogs, and He struck the sand to initiate the plague of lice. He held up Moses’ arm at Rephidim when they fought with Amalek. After these three incidents of seeking peace with great emunah, not for his own benefit but for that of their neighbors, God decided that he and his sons be chosen for service before His Presence, not for God, not for the benefit of himself and his family, but to be the “link” between the living and the dead (Bamidbar 17:13), that is, to serve the people and be this link for the spiritually dead who wish to draw closer to the Eternal. Such was his merit that his sons inherited this position.
Eleazar succeeded him as cohen, being older than Itamar, according to Bamidbar 20 and according to the midrashim, he was 70 years old and the first high priest to serve in the land of Israel during the reign of Joshua ben Nun. Joshua 24:33 says: “Then Eleazar, the son of Aaron, died and was buried in the hill that belonged to Pinchas his son, which was given to him in Mount Ephraim.” He was later succeeded by Pinchas, who had acted like a zealot during the Midianite conflict. For Pinchas, for that act of courage, he was told: “I grant him my brit shalom, covenant of peace. It will be for him and for his descendants after him, the everlasting covenant of the priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and atoned for the Israelites.” (Bamidbar 25:13)
Pinchas then receives a special covenant of a quality he didn’t possess – shalom. His natural instinct was like his ancestor Levi, who slaughtered an entire people, so he is given a dose of the shalom his grandfather had in excess, in order to fulfill the role of the priesthood. Until then, Pinchas was not a priest. Can you imagine a priest without shalom? It would be like listening to an ISIS or a Hamas Imam today. However, his descendants lost the high priesthood, and Eli, son of Itamar, inherited it. There is no conflict here, since Eli was the son of Itamar, son of Aaron, therefore, the covenant had not been violated. However, Pinchas possibly loses the blessing of having his son Abishua succeed him as high priest, either because he did nothing to prevent the loss of Gideon’s daughter after her hasty vow, or because he did not resort to the tools of peace granted by the Eternal in the peace covenant to mediate the incident of the concubine of Givah (in the Book of Judges) when the tribe of Benjamin was about to become extinct.
Then, Itamar’s branch inherited the high priesthood through Eli, but he lost it due to his weakness with his sons and having permitted the sacrilege that the Torah teaches the priests to observe. Although Eli did not see the demise of his priestly line, four generations later Itamar’s line in the priesthood would disappear when, at the time of David, Abiathar tried to seduce Solomon by supporting Adonijah’s cause (1 Kings 2:26-28) and he was expelled to Anatot, in the tribe of Benjamin, to “his inheritance” outside Jerusalem. That is, he lost not only the high priesthood but also his priestly lineage. Why? Because he did not inherit the quality of shalom, he broke the commandment that God was his inheritance, and he did not seek peace so that Solomon could exercise his reign.
This is how Tzadok appears when 1 Kings 2:35 says, “And in place of Abiathar, the king appointed the priest Tzadok.” Again, the priestly line returns to Eleazar and the house of Pinchas. It is interesting that Tzadok (which means Righteous One) then represents a balance between peace (which, in excess, can be evil) and zeal for the Eternal (which, in excess, can also be evil). He is then the man who receives the Eternal covenant of peace, and the determination that Pinchas had, belonging to the ninth line of the latter.
The prophet Ezekiel praises his line because he stood firm against idolatry and sees him as someone of integrity and uprightness in serving the Eternal, zealous for the Torah, but also sees in him the quality of kindness, love, and peace toward people. Who can teach that to someone? Only a just and loving man. That is why he is chosen to minister before the Eternal. If we look at it, it really is the spirit, the spiritual DNA, in addition to the physical, that was necessary to remain a priest before the Eternal.
According to history, the priesthood of Tzadok lasted for about 600 years until the Hasmoneans, descendants of the Maccabees, who were said to be descendants of Jehoiarib, and therefore had the right to occupy the office. However, during the decline of the Second Temple, upon the succession of Aristobulus III (brother-in-law of Herod I, an Edomite), an Egyptian named Hananel was appointed, and then a series of names began to occupy the office of high priest in the temple for short periods (from 4-10 years), and by people who weren’t Jewish. They didn’t even dream of meeting the lineage requirements to be priests and high priests, thus contaminating the temple and the service of God. Was there truly peace? Justice? Torah? By now, it was a political office, established for reasons unrelated to its initial model. This role was extinguished in the 83rd high priest from Aaron to Pinchas Ben Shmuel, according to Josephus (in Book IV of the Jewish War).
What does all this have to do with the Parashah? Well, the first thing is that God’s heart and desire were for His people to be able to draw near to Him. Unfortunately, not everyone has the moral capacity, the ideal spirit, and adequate characteristics to present themselves before God without dying, since not everyone is aware of who God is.
Thus, the idea is birthed in God’s heart that there would be people who could exercise the role of approaching Him, whom He instructs on how they should approach, and they, in turn, would exercise the role of teachers so that the people could know how to present themselves before God without dying. God’s promise was and remains that Aaron and his descendants would inherit the priesthood, but today, as much as they would like to be able to verify their lineage, there is no pure DNA to prove who the descendants of Aaron are, since his remains were not preserved for verification. God had declared that his descendants would inherit this privilege through the line of Tzadok. So, who are those who will minister to the people? Those who follow the written Torah, who keep the covenant of peace and who are righteous.
It’s a waste of time to think that we can have physical “pure” priests if the Third Temple is ever built. I may be wrong, but this is irrelevant and can be easily manipulated to serve political or economic interests and not the spirit that true priests should carry.
I began by saying that God’s promises are in Him (in God Himself), Amen, and that the vision, although delayed, will be fulfilled. God established His standards to be eternal, His statutes and judgments to be forever, and He will raise up priests to fulfill His service, to be a bond of union, of peace and goodness, and thus restore all things. God said of His people that we are a kingdom of priests; that’s right, you and I are. What are you and I doing to reestablish His kingdom on earth? My prayer is that God would allow us to be bearers of peace, instruments of His justice, goodness, and mercy, and thus, once again be the bond or link so that those who wish to approach Him may do so with complete confidence.
Shabbat Shalom
Mauricio Quintero