Unscrolled, Emor: A Heavy Burden

To be Aaron, the High Priest, is a heavy burden indeed.

In this week’s parashah, as well as in those that have preceded it, we have come to understand the exact nature of this burden. To be the High Priest — the Kohen Gadol — is to be responsible for cleansing the sins of the entire people. It is to enter, vulnerable and alone, into the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God is hottest and most volatile. It is to gird oneself, day after day, in the heavy vestments of the job; to be always carrying the people as stones upon the breastplate and as weights upon the shoulders. It is to become bloodied morning and night with the blood of the offerings. It is to become roasted in the savory smell of burnt flesh and the pungent perfume of the sacred incense. It is to hear each day the plaintive bleating of the goats, the bellow of the bull.

It is to watch one’s brother ascend to God’s presence on the mountain while remaining behind, mired in the muck and entrails of God’s holy work down below. It is to see one’s sons, young and foolish and mortal, singed by the wrath of God for offering their strange fire before the sanctuary. It is to learn, as we do in Parashat Emor, that you are not even free to draw close to your own dead kinsmen, for you must remain ever pure, ever ready to serve.

In Aaron, light and darkness merge and sizzle. He is a figure of life and a figure of death. A shaman and a butcher. His sacred vocation, the sacrificial service, was itself instituted by God in response to the great sin of the Golden Calf, in which Aaron played a terrible role. His most important function, that of atoning for the people on Yom Kippur, was instituted in the wake of the sin of his sons, Nadav and Avihu. Thus, Aaron is both the midwife of sin and the vanquisher of sin. At one of his feet is the goat for the Lord. At the other, the goat for Azazel.

On Yom Kippur, we sing the song “Ma’reh Kohen,” which celebrates the joyous moment on the Day of Atonement when the High Priest would emerge, unscathed, from his dangerous entry into the Holy of Holies.

According to the song, his appearance at that moment was like “the glitter of light from the brilliance of the angels.” It was like “the canopy of the heavens stretched out on high.” It was like “a rose planted in a beautiful garden.” It was like “a bright star shining in the east.”

That was how he looked. But how did he feel? What did he experience as he walked out to the people, having come so close to the presence of God — having wrestled with the people’s sins and survived? Whatever it was, was it worth the high price that he paid?

With the fall of the Temple came the end of Aaron’s unique burden, role and knowledge of God.

This is a question we can’t answer. With the fall of the Temple came the fall of the priestly service and the end of Aaron’s unique burden, role and knowledge of God.

They’re still among us today, of course. They go by Cohen or Cohn or Katz or Kahn. In some communities, special restrictions and special honors are still reserved for them, but it’s nothing like it was. They live lives like the rest of us. They go to work and come home. They marry and raise families. They die and are buried.

If Moshiach comes and rebuilds the Temple, however, they will be recalled to their sacred work, asked to hang up their hats and take on the mantle of Aaron — lover of peace and pursuer of peace, figure of light and dark — who broke himself to make the people whole.

Matthew Schultz is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (2020). He is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts.