The Kohen Within

Nietzche was preoccupied with the question of where the "good" came from, and who defined it, that is, what is its "genealogy". Here is his summary statement on the matter:

The judgement "good" did not originate with those to whom "goodness" was shown! Rather it was "the good" themselves , that is to say, the noble, powerful, high-stationed and high-minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good, that is, of the first rank, in contradistinction to all the low, low-minded, common and plebian'the pathos of nobility and distance, as aforesaid, the protracted and domineering fundamental total feeling on the part of a higher ruling order in relation to a lower order, to a "below"- that is the origin of the antithesis "good" and "bad"' (The Genealogy of Morals, Kauffman edition pp 25-26).

Thus, to Nietzche, those who have power are those who create morals for a society. When, as in the ancient times, according to Nietzche's myth, the leadership was in the hands of the aristocratic and noble, there was a different conception of morality than the currently accepted one in bourgeois society, which derives from the ressentiment of the herd, "perverted" towards concepts like pity and shame. The idea that morality as a concept and practice is the result of forces of power in society is developed in Foucault and others. Is this definition of power= morality the case in Jewish thought?

I propose that our perasha offers a test case in reading of these ideas. The way one explains the supplementary prohibitions of the kohanim (I don't like the term "priesthood" loaded as it is with a set of meanings from our European history) in essence situates the concept of an elite within Jewish society.

The textual issues which give rise to this discussion in the commentators is found at the outset of our perasha. Perashat Emor begins with Gd telling Moshe to speak to the Kohanim, the sons of Aharon, instructing them not to be defiled by contact with the dead. The word emor, speak, is repeated twice in the verse. The Talmud Bavli, Yevamot 114. explains this duplication as instructing the priests to caution the adults to educate the children as well in the ways of ritual purity, so that they don't defile themselves either. The Hebrew phrase is very concise and leads to several alternate readings "l'hazhir gedolim al ketanim"- translated literally, warn the big regarding the small. The Midrash adds that this duplication of utterances, of the command Emor, is necessary because of the presence in humanity of an evil inclination, and thus, being easily corruptible, humanity requires an extra warning (as opposed to the higher, more spiritual inhabitants of the supernal realm).

The Kotzker finds the Midrash's meaning to be seemingly out of place. If a duplicated warning is mandatory for those in a lower state, then duplications should be present in commands to the masses, not the elite, as it is here! So why then is it directed at the Kohanim, instead of towards the masses? To the Kotzker, what is directed to the Kohanim is meant as an educational paradigm oriented toward the entire people's transformation. Thus, the duplication addressed to the kohanim is meant to teach the body of Israel that if these people who are so close to the Temple, need a special extra precautionary warning, then how much more careful everyone else!

As we proceed with the Hasidic thinkers, we notice a trend, whereby the status of the Kohen is diminished in favor of the people as a whole. The Tiferet Shelomo notes that the opening verse begins in the plural, addressed to the Kohanim, but ends with the singular- here's the verse transliterated: v'amarta alehem, you shall say unto them, lanefesh lo yitama b'amav, that the kohen should not "yitama", defile himself, among the people. Spiritual elitism? According to the Tiferet Shelomo, the purpose of the kehuna as an institution is primarily concerned with elevating the entire people, thus, the subject of the verb yitama (defiled) is not the kohen, but rather is an injunction against letting any nefesh b'amav, a person of the nation, be defiled. In other words, don't read it that no priest should profane himself among the people, rather, read the verse as: Tell the priests not to allow anyone from among the people, b'amav, to become profaned. Not letting any individual stumble is the primary purpose of the institution of kehuna. The Sefat Emet (in the sermons from 1877, trl"z) suggests that the level of holiness of the kohen is in a direct relationship to the level of holiness of each individual among the rest of the people. It is not only an individual attainment, but rather a reflection of the level of the people as a whole.

The Kedushat Levi, the Be'er Mayim Hayim, and the Noam Elimelech share an even more radically egalitarian view. The Kedushat Levi explains that the phrase "the sons of Aharon" is superfluous, after all, we know who the kohanim are descended from. To him, this phrase is meant to keep the kohanim modest. The kohen can not lord his position over others, as his position is solely a result of lineage, something which one doesn't earn, and can't be said to deserve, so what does he have to be a big shot about? Thus he must fulfil his duties not thinking he is any more special than anyone else as a result. The Kedushat Levi also reads the double emphasis on the word "emor", not just as a teaching for the kohanim, but to all people to keep their speech from becoming defiled. The Noam Elimelech, similarly, denies the validity of pride about lineage, the person's "am", his people, which he refers to as a "tuma'a", a defilement, rereading the end of the verse transliterated above as "the kohen shouldn't defile his soul with pride about his people". Once freed from reading this passage concerning the priesthood, he rereads the above cited Talmudic teaching regarding "Gedolim al ketanim", warning the great regarding the lesser, in two ways of interest to us:

1. That even those in a lofty spiritual state (gedolim) must be concerned about their own seemingly trivial sins (ketanim).

2. The idea of repetition: When in a high spiritual state (gadlut), the individual must attempt to descend with the lessons of that state back into the quotidian, the everyday. The challenge is to carry the spiritual heights of specific moments of grandeur back into ordinary life and society.

The Be'er Mayim Hayim stresses the mutual relatedness of all the people; there is a global responsibility upon each sector to not pull the others down. He explains that this teaching comes after the Nadav V'Avihu episode, which was a failure not of the masses but of the upper echelons of spiritual society, and thus wonderfully inverts the usual reading of the "l'hazhir gedolim al ketanim" maxim: The ordinary people should not be misled by the sins of the leadership!

In conclusion, let us turn to the teaching of R. Zadok Hacohen, who at the outset seems to teach that the kohanim do have a privileged position, but his inversion of who the kohanim are is most dramatic- to R. Zadok, all of Israel ultimately are the kohanim .According to the Midrash Rabba, this perasha of spiritual nondefilement comes as a reward for the "yir'ah", awe, with which Aharon approached Gd when called to the altar (see Rashi on Vayikra 9:7, supported by Malachi 2:5). The Midrash adds that this honor will be bestowed upon all subsequent generations, even after the Temple is destroyed. But what significance does non-defilement have in the absence of the Temple, when the ritual rites of purification are no longer in existence? R. Zadok explains that even if the physical edifice on Mt. Zion no longer exists, the "Temple" still exists. Where is it? In our hearts, as quoted according to the Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabba. There, Gd is referred to as the heart of the Jewish people; the Midrash's proof text refers to Gd as being "shochen", dwelling, in our hearts; the word "shochen" is etymologically related to the word for the sanctuary, the "Mishkan"- thus there, in our heart, is the Temple, where Gd's presence dwells. As a result of yir'ah, awe before the Divine Presence, the descendents of Aharaon are always ready to enter this Temple, the one alive, beating, and present inside each and every one of us. And in truth, it is not only genetic kohanim who have this ability. We are all described as having this same awe, this yir'ah that enables us to encounter Gd dwelling within us, on the Shabbat, as stated in a halachic context in the Mishna, Demai 4:1, and in the Jerusalem Talmud there. The Zohar states explicitly that Shabbat in time is equivalent to the Temple in space, so that keeping the Shabbat is equivalent to serving Gd in the Temple. Thus, in summary, when we attune to proper consciousness, we are all equivalent to kohanim serving in the Temple- in that Temple within each and every one of us.

Once we have reached the point whereby the priestly texts regarding Kohanim can be understood as referring to inter- and intra- personal issues, then we are open to lovely readings of the sort presented by R. Hayim of Sanz in his Diverei Hayim. The Diverei Hayim expands a suggestion by the Noam Meggidim that the nefesh, a metonymic term that is usually read as "a person" referred to in the opening verse of Perashat Emor, refers not to the priest but actually means what its literal translation says it is, the "soul" (that is, nefesh is translated as soul). Verse 21:1 reads: lanefesh lo yitama b'amav,generally translated as "the priest should not become ritually impure among the people". However, in the spirit of the subversion described throughout this essay, the Noam Meggidim and Diverei Hayim democratize the reading to refer to each individual soul. The Divrei Hayim adds a radical translation of the word amav, which is generally read as deriving from the root "am", meaning "the people". However, he suggests that the root here is one with a doubled m, which is the term used for the dwindling flickering of a coal, the dimming light of the ember. Read in this light, so to speak, the Divrei Hayim suggests an alternative message for this passage: When the spiritual achievement of a particular individual (soul, nefesh) has reached a low point (its immui, its dwindling), it should not give up hope and self destruct in despair (lo yitama, giving anpsychological spin on theritual term "impurity"). Rather, every person should realize that even at the lowest point, when one feels one has entirely "fallen from grace", one can restore themselves to a state of personal holiness and wholeness.Thus, we have seen how a seemingly exclusionary set of dry ritualistic exhortations regarding an "elite", have become transvalued into a set of universally normative spiritual and ethical goals and guidelines. In our readings, we look to the "masses" not as an entity which is the source of ressentiment as in Nietszche, but rather begin to see each and every individual person regardless of societal situation as the source of endless spiritual renewal.