[Avodah] ohr lagoyim

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 06/09/2016 05:23 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote:
> R' Zev Zero wrote:
>
>  > But all of this is beside the point, because a kohen's job does not
>  > involve any kind of outreach.  Except for the two days a year that his
>  > beis av is on duty in the BHMK he has no duties at all.
>
> I am afraid that a certain heilige yid by the name of Yechezkel, the son of Buzi, disagreed with you.
>
> Ve-et 'ami yoru bein qodesh le'hol uvein tame letahor yodi'um.
> "And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean"
>
> Given he was himself a kohen, he might have had first hand
> experiences with the job, too.

It was expected that all of Shevet Levi would devote themselves to learning,
since they had nothing else to do, and since they got in that position in the
first place mostly by dint of having already been the Torah-learning class in
Mitzrayim (which role they got simply by staying in the beis medrash when
everyone else ran out to do their civic duty) it was natural that they would
continue.  Thus it was expected that they would be prominent in the Sanhedrin
("uvasa el hacohanim haleviyim") and "yoru mishpatecha leyaacov".

But there was no requirement on any individual Cohen or Levi to do so; they
were given land for farming around each of their cities, and by the late
2nd bayis it appears that most cohanim, or at least a large proportion of
them, were amei ha'aretz, and this did not make them less Cohanim.

 From this I conclude that Torah is not part of the job, but rather something
to do when you're *not* on the job.  The actual job of kehuna was a well-paid
sinecure that Hashem gave them so they would have the time to do this other
thing on their own, much as one is supposed to let a Talmid Chacham sell his
goods first in the market, so he can get out of there and back to his "hobby".


-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
zev at sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis