[Avodah] Kimchis (was Who avoids whom)

[Elazar M. Teitz]

     RMicha Berger asked,

 > why was Kimchis rewarded by having all 7 sons merit becoming
kohanim gedolim for ensuring that "the rafters of my home have never 'seen'
>the plaits of my hair" (Yuma 47a)?<

     Who, other than Kimchis herself, said that was the reason for her reward?  It was the response she gave when asked to what she attributed it -- but the chachhamim did not accept her answer (harbei asu kein v'lo ho'ilu), nor did they offer an alternate explanation.

 
>I don't understand one element of that story... He son R' 
Yishmael was metamei through the roq of a nakhri, and so the backup had to
serve on YK.  This is how his brother Yeshvav served as KG. I
find it odd, because this seems like an odd part of a reward -- one of her
sons got to be KG through the other's mishap?<

     Actually, it happened not once, but twice, with his brothers Y'sheivav and Yoseph.  The reward was not that the mishaps occurred so that the brothers could serve, but that when the mishaps occurred (which might have been an onesh for his having left the mikdash to go to the shuk), the ones found most fit to serve as replacements were her sons, and not some other kohein.


On the same topic, RChana Luntz wrote,

> First of all, the question can be asked, how do the chachamim know that it
is in her merit that all her sons were kohen gadol, maybe it was in the
merit of her husband, their father?<

     The most obvious likelihood was because the chachamim knew the father, and felt that he was unworthy in his own right for such a z'chus.  After all, he was not chosen to be a KG.  The fact that Yishmaeil was referred to by his mother's name -- ben Kimchis, not ben Whatever his father's name was -- would indicate that.  Furthermore, the z'chus was that she saw them serve (v'ra'asa iman sh'nei kohanim g'dolim b'yom echad), and the father may not have had that z'chus; he may have passed away before it happened.
 
>Secondly, one of the miracles of the  beis hamikdash was that the kohanim
gedolim did not become metameh - although one can answer that this was only
in relation to tumas keri<

     Why "one _can_ answer"?  It is explicit in the mishna in Avos that the miracle was "lo eira keri l'chohein gadol b'Yom haKippurim."

EMT

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