Jewish priesthood

Kohen ( he, , ''kōhēn'', , "priest", pl. , ''kōhănīm'', , "priests") is the Hebrew word for "priest", used in reference to the Aaronic priesthood, also called Aaronites or Aaronides. Levitical priests or ''kohanim'' are traditionally believed and halakhically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the biblical Aaron (also ''Aharon''), brother of Moses.

During the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, ''kohanim'' performed the daily and holiday (Yom Tov) duties of korban, sacrificial offerings. Today, ''kohanim'' retain a lesser though distinct status within Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism and are bound by additional restrictions according to Orthodox Judaism.

In the Samaritan community, the kohanim have remained the primary religious leaders. Ethiopian Jewish religious leaders are sometimes called ''kahen'', a form of the same word, but the position is not hereditary and their duties are more like those of rabbis than kohanim in most Jewish communities.

Etymology

The word ''kohen'' originally derives from a Semitic root common at least to the Central Semitic languages; In the ancient polytheistic religion of Phoenicia, the word for priest was ''khn'' (). The cognate Arabic word , ''kāhin'' means priest or " soothsayer, augur".

The noun ''kohen'' is used in the Torah to refer to priests, whether Jewish or pagan, such as the ''kohanim'' ("priests") of Baal (2 Kings 10:19) or Dagon, although Christian priests are referred to in modern Hebrew by the term ''komer'' (). ''Kohanim'' can also refer to the Jewish nation as a whole, as in , where the whole of Israel is addressed as a "priestly kingdom and a holy nation".

Translations in the paraphrase of the Aramaic Targumic interpretations include "friend" in Targum Yonathan to 2 Kings 10:11, "master" in Targum to Amos 7:10, and "minister" in Mechilta to Parshah Jethro (Exodus 18:1–20:23). As a starkly different translation the title "worker" (Rashi on Exodus 29:30) and "servant" (Targum to Jeremiah 48:7), have been offered as a translation as well.

Biblical origins

The status of kohen was conferred on Aaron, the brother of Moses, and his sons as an everlasting covenant or a covenant of salt. During the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and until the Holy Temple was built in Jerusalem, the priests performed their priestly service in the portable Tabernacle. (, , , ) Their duties involved offering the daily and Jewish holiday Korban, sacrifices, and blessing the people in a Priestly Blessing, later also known as ''Nesiat Kapayim'' ("Raising of the hands").

In a broader sense, since Aaron was a descendant of the Tribe of Levi, priests are sometimes included in the term ''Levites'', by direct patrilineal descent. However, not all Levites are priests.

When the Temple existed, most sacrifices and offerings could only be conducted by priests. Non-priest Levites (i.e. all those who descended from Levi, the son of Jacob, but not from Aaron) performed a variety of other Temple roles, including ritual slaughter of animals, song service by use of voice and musical instruments, and various tasks in assisting the priests in performing their service.

Torah law

The Torah mentions Melchizedek king of Salem, identified by Rashi as being Shem the son of Noah, as a priest (kohen) to El Elyon (the supreme God) (). The second is Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis, then Jethro, priest of Midian, both pagan priests of their era.

When Esau sold the birthright of the first born to Jacob, Rashi explains that the priesthood was sold along with it, because by right the priesthood belongs to the first-born. Israel was supposed to become "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" , but when Israel (except the Tribe of Levi) sinned in the incident of the golden calf, Moses broke the tablets containing the commandments , and then returned up the mountain after making two new tablets to receive commandments which would form the basis of the lesser law which Israel would now have to follow. The lesser priesthood was given to the Tribe of Levi, which had not been tainted by this incident

Moses received the priesthood under the hand of his father-in-law, Jethro, after which he spoke to the Lord via the burning bush. As a prophet, (one who speaks with God) he held this higher office within the priesthood. Aaron was ordained as the High Priest of the lesser priesthood or Aaronic Priesthood; which includes the Levitical; to parallel the lesser law the Israelites would now have to follow due to the Golden Calf incident and the subsequent revised covenant. .

Moses is referred to as a priest in Psalms 99:6, this refers to his being a prophet, which is an office within the higher Priesthood.

Aaron received the priesthood along with his children and any descendants that would be born subsequently. However, his grandson Phinehas had already been born, and did not receive the priesthood until he killed the prince of the Tribe of Simeon and the princess of the Midianites (). Thereafter, this lesser priesthood has remained with the descendants of Aaron.

Vestments

The Torah provides for specific vestments to be worn by the priests when they are ministering in the Tabernacle: "And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for dignity and for beauty" (). These garments are described in detail in , and . The high priest wore eight holy garments (''bigdei kodesh''). Of these, four were of the same type worn by all priests, and four were unique to the Kohen Gadol.

Those vestments which were common to all priests, were:
* Priestly undergarments (Hebrew ''michnasayim'') (breeches): linen pants reaching from the waist to the knees "to cover their nakedness" ()
* Priestly tunic (Hebrew ''ketonet'') (tunic): made of pure linen, covering the entire body from the neck to the feet, with sleeves reaching to the wrists. That of the high priest was embroidered (); those of the priests were plain ().
* Priestly sash (Hebrew ''avnet'') (sash): that of the high priest was of fine linen with " embroidered work" in blue and purple and scarlet (, ); those worn by the priests were of white, twined linen.
* Priestly turban (Hebrew ''mitznefet''): that of the high priest was much larger than that of the priests and wound so that it formed a broad, flat-topped turban; that for priests was wound so that it formed a cone-shaped turban, called a ''migbahat''.

The vestments that were unique to the high priest were:
* Priestly robe (''me'il'') ("robe of the ephod"): a sleeveless, blue robe, the lower hem of which was fringed with small golden bells alternating with pomegranate-shaped tassels in blue, purple, and scarlet—tekhelet, ''argaman'' (purple), ''tolaat shani''.
* Ephod: a richly embroidered vest or apron with two onyx engraved gemstones on the shoulders, on which were engraved the names of the tribes of Israel
* Priestly breastplate (Hebrew ''hoshen''): with twelve gems, each engraved with the name of one of the tribes; a pouch in which he probably carried the Urim and Thummim. It was fastened to the Ephod
* On the front of the turban was a golden plate inscribed with the words: "Holiness unto YHWH" attached to the mitznefet.

The high priest, like all priests, would minister barefoot when he was serving in the Temple. Like all of the priests, he had to immerse himself in the ritual bath before vesting and wash his hands and his feet before performing any sacred act. The Talmud teaches that neither the kohanim nor the Kohen Gadol were fit to minister unless they wore their priestly vestments: "While they are clothed in the priestly garments, they are clothed in the priesthood; but when they are not wearing the garments, the priesthood is not upon them" (B.Zevachim 17:B). It is further taught that just as the sacrifices facilitate an atonement for sin, so do the priestly garments (B.Zevachim 88b). The high priest had two sets of holy garments: the "golden garments" detailed above, and a set of white "linen garments" (''bigdei ha-bad'') which he wore only on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) (). On that day, he would change his holy garments four times, beginning in the golden garments but changing into the Linen Garments for the two moments when he would enter the Holy of Holies (the first time to offer the blood of atonement and the incense, and the second time to retrieve the censer), and then change back again into the golden garments after each time. He would immerse in the ritual bath before each change of garments, washing his hands and his feet after removing the garments and again before putting the other set on. The linen garments were only four in number, those corresponding to the garments worn by all priests (undergarments, tunic, sash and turban), but made only of white linen, with no embroidery. They could be worn only once, new sets being made each year.

High Priest

In every generation when the Temple was standing, one kohen would be singled out to perform the functions of the High Priest (Hebrew ''kohen gadol''). His primary task was the Day of Atonement service. Another unique task of the high priest was the offering of a daily meal sacrifice; he also held the prerogative to supersede any priest and offer any offering he chose. Although the Torah retains a procedure to select a High Priest when needed, in the absence of the Temple in Jerusalem, there is no High Priest in Judaism today.

Twenty-four kohanic divisions

King David assigned each of the 24 priestly clans by lot to a weekly watch (Heb. משמרת, ''mishmeret'') during which its members were responsible for maintaining the schedule of offerings at the Temple in Jerusalem, in accordance with . Prior to that time, the priestly courses numbered a mere eight. This newly instated a cycle of priestly courses, or priestly divisions, which repeated itself roughly twice each year.

When the First and Second Temples were built, the priests of Aaron's lineage assumed these roles in the Temple in Jerusalem. Each of the 24 groups consisted of six priestly families, with each of the six serving one day of the week. On the Sabbath day, all six worked in tandem. According to later rabbinical interpretation, these 24 groups changed every Sabbath at the completion of the Mussaf service.. However, on the biblical festivals all 24 were present in the Temple for duty.

According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta‘anith 4:2 / 20a): "Four wards came up out of exile: Yedaiah, Harim, Pašḥūr and Immer. The prophets among them had made a stipulation with them, namely, that even if Jehoiariv should come up out of exile, the officiating ward that serves in the Temple at that time should not be rejected on his account, but rather, he is to become secondary unto them."

Destruction of the Second Temple

Following the Temple's destruction at the end of the First Jewish–Roman War and the displacement to the Galilee of the bulk of the remaining Jewish population in Judea at the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jewish tradition in the Talmud and poems from the period record that the descendants of each priestly watch established a separate residential seat in towns and villages of the Galilee, and maintained this residential pattern for at least several centuries in anticipation of the reconstruction of the Temple and reinstitution of the cycle of priestly courses. Specifically, this kohanic settlement region stretched from the Beit Netofa Valley, through the Nazareth region to Arbel and the vicinity of Tiberias. In subsequent years, there was a custom of publicly recalling every Shabbat in the synagogues the courses of the priests, a practice that reinforced the prestige of the priests' lineage.

Professor Yosef Tobi, describing a stone inscription found in Yemen and which contains a partial list of the names (in Hebrew) of the twenty-four priestly courses and their places of residence, writes: "As for the probable strong spiritual attachment held by the Jews of Ḥimyar for the Land of Israel, this is also attested to by an inscription bearing the names of the ''miśmarōṯ'' (priestly wards), which was initially discovered in September 1970 by W. Müller and then, independently, by P. Grjaznevitch within a mosque in Bayt al-Ḥāḍir, a village situated near Tan‘im, east of Ṣanʻā’. This inscription has been published by several European scholars, but the seminal study was carried out by E.E. Urbach (1973), one of the most important scholars of rabbinic literature in the previous generation. The priestly wards were seen as one of the most distinctive elements in the collective memory of the Jewish people as a nation during the period of Roman and Byzantine rule in the Land of Israel following the destruction of the Second Temple, insofar as they came to symbolize Jewish worship within the Land."

It is now uncertain when this stone inscription was first engraved, but certainly it dates back to a time near the Second Temple’s destruction. The complete list of sacerdotal names would normally have included twenty-four priestly wards. However, today, the stone inscription contains only a partial list of their names, with their former places of residence – beginning from the fourth ward, and ending with the fourteenth ward. This was because the stone had been partially broken away, as also part of which was hidden underground. This is the longest roster of names of this kind ever discovered unto this day:

Mishnah and Talmud

Qualifications and disqualifications

Although kohanim may assume their duties once they reached physical maturity, the fraternity of kohanim generally would not allow young kohanim to begin service until they reached the age of twenty, and some opinions state that this age was thirty. There was no mandatory retirement age. Only when a kohen became physically infirm could he no longer serve.

A kohen may become disqualified from performing his service for a host of reasons, including, but not limited to, Tumah, marital defilements, and physical blemishes. Of importance is that the kohen is never permanently disqualified from service but is permitted to return to his normal duties once the disqualification ceases.

Twenty-four kohanic gifts

The kohanim were compensated for their service to the nation and in the Temple through the twenty-four kohanic gifts. Of these 24 gifts, 10 are listed as to be given even outside the land of Israel. An example of the gifts given to the kohen in the Jewish diaspora are most notably the five shekels of the '' pidyon haben'' ceremony, and the giving of the foreleg, cheeks and abomasum from each Kosher-slaughtered animal.

Torah instruction

Torah verses and rabbinical commentary to the Tanakh

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