PARASHAT EMOR - ‘Say’ - אֱמוֹר

Saturday 17th May 2025     Day 34 of Omer               19th Iyyar 5785

PARASHAT EMOR  - ‘Say’  -  אֱמוֹר

Leviticus 21:1-24:23, Ezekiel 44:15-31, Matthew 26:59-66

Not all laws in the Torah apply to everyone in the same manner. For example, women are naturally exempt from the law of circumcision, and men are exempt from the laws about childbirth.

Some laws are mandatory for everyone, such as the prohibition on adultery; some are optional, such as the Nazarite vow; and some apply only to certain classes of people, such as the laws for the king or the laws for the priests. Leviticus 21 and 22 contain several laws that apply exclusively to priests.

The priests had to live at a higher standard of holiness and a higher standard of ritual purity than the rest of the Israelites. “They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they present the offerings by fire to the LORD, the food of their God; so they shall be holy” (Leviticus 21:6), the Torah explains.

Contact with a dead body makes a person ritually unfit for seven days. This is not a problem for the average person. It is not a sin to become ritually unfit, but it is a good deed to attend to the dead and escort them to burial. For priests, though, this presents a problem. A priest is supposed to be in a state of ritual fitness to be able to serve in the Temple. Moreover, he must be in a ritually fit state before he can eat the priestly portions of food and the sacrifices. For that reason, priests are required to maintain ritual purity. One way to do that is to avoid coming into contact with a corpse.

Other laws apply to priests that do not apply to common Israelites. For example, the sons of Aaron are prohibited from marrying women who have been involved in sexual immorality, like promiscuity or prostitution. The high priest was forbidden from marrying any woman except a virgin Israelite.

To be fit for serving at the altar, the priests needed to be as physically unblemished as the sacrifices they were offering. The blind, the crippled, the disfigured, the maimed, and the handicapped could not draw near to offer the LORD’s offerings by fire. Such a priest was not disqualified from the priesthood. He still enjoyed all the privileges and rights of being a priest. He was able to participate in the services and eat the sacred offerings. He was not banned from the Temple courts.

However, his physical condition disqualified him from the altar services and from entering the Tabernacle proper. The requirement that a priest must be unblemished creates a connection between priest and sacrifice. Just as the sacrificial animals had to be unblemished to be accepted on the altar, so too the priest who brought them there had to be unblemished.

The priests had to live according to these higher standards because they were set apart for the service of the Temple. They were God’s representatives on earth. Remembering this helps explain why believers need to live at a higher standard than the rest of the world.

(This is our challenge. To walk as a child of light and to leave behind the fragrance of the knowledge of Messiah in every place we go. Narrow is the way)

We are a spiritual priesthood. We have a calling to represent God to those who do not know Him.