THE PRIESTS IN JUDAISM

 

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

Many religions today have priests. For example, the Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Anglicans, some Lutherans and Hindus are served by ordained priests. Islam has no sacerdotal priests. In Judaism, we had priests but not anymore. 

The biblical history of the priesthood is complicated. As Lawrence Boadt, a Biblical scholar, puts it, “the actual history of the priesthood (in the Hebrew Bible) is murky and leaves many problems yet to be solved” (1). So, the best that we can do is to draw a few general lines as we reconstruct the history of the priesthood in ancient Israel. 

Roland de Vaux, a French Bible scholar, who studied the social structures of the ancient Hebrews (2), points out that in the early periods of the Jewish history, there was not an organized priestly class. In fact, during the days of the Judges, 12^th-10^th centuries BCE, different individuals functioned as priests. For example, the prophet Samuel was one of them (I Sam. 2:18).  Similarly, Micah the Ephraimite, appointed his own son as priest (Judg.17: 5). Even king David’s children were working as priests (II Sam. 8;18). During the monarchy, especially during the reign of Josiah (640-609 BCE) and on, in the Book of Deuteronomy that was redacted around that time, a new group of people emerged as priests in the only temple that existed in the country, namely in Jerusalem.  They were the Levitical priests (ha-kohanim ha-leviyim), the presumed descendants of the tribe of Levi (Deut. 10:8) who offered the appropriate sacrifices on the altar and took care of the needs of the sanctuary. After the destruction of the First temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and especially after the return of the exiles back to Israel, during the second temple, a new group appears to have gotten the upper hand as the main priests of the Jerusalem temple, and they were the Aaronides, the presumed descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. The prophet Ezekiel, ca.  593-571, makes this distinction clear (44:10ff). From then on, the Aaronides became the main priests and the Levites were denigrated to becoming their helpers , as it is made clear in the Book of Numbers (3: 5-10), the redaction of which most likely followed the time of Ezekiel. The title of Kohen was hereditary and went from father to son. A Kohen was not allowed to marry a divorcee, a prostitute or a widow. They were not permitted to have any contact with dead bodies. They were also not allowed to drink wine or strong drinks. The Aaronides held their function until the destruction of the second temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. After that the priesthood ceased to exist. 

During the Rabbinic period that followed, and even now in the present times, at Orthodox or Conservative synagogues, the priests, namely the descendants of the Aaronides and the Levites assumed a ceremonial role in the synagogues and in the Jewish religious life. For example, someone who claims to be a Kohen (now going by the name of Kohen, Kahn  or even Katz, for Kohen Tzedek, a righteous Kohen),  gets the honor of ascending the pulpit for the reading of the first portion of the Torah, and a Levi takes the second. Similarly, a Kohen is invited to come up to the pulpit to bless the congregation, covering his head with a prayer shawl. In cases  where a redemption of the first born (namely, a pidyon haben) is done, it is usually a Kohen who does the redeeming for a sum of money. Also, a Kohen is not allowed to attend a funeral at a cemetery. Outside of these, for all practical purposes, the priesthood has ceased to exist in Jewish life today. 

Reform Judaism, ever since the Pittsburgh platform of 1885, has eliminated all teachings regarding the “priestly purity” and consequently has abolished all distinctions among Jews. The role of the Kohen or Levi is now non existent in Reform Jewish practice. Today, we believe, that every Jew has the same obligations and responsibilities vis-a vis the Jewish community at large.

 

Notes:

Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament. Paulist Press, 1984, 278.

R. de VauX, Les Institutions de l’Ancient Testament. Les Editions du Cerf,   1967, 217ff.