Best Wishes
to all for a
Happy Passover
Warm Passover
Greetings From
Hinda & Harvey Goldberg
Warm Passover
Greetings From
Frank & Mary Feingold
Warm Passover
Greetings From
Mike Costello
A SWEET & JOYOUS
Passover Joel & Madelyn Mickelberg
Best Wishes
to all for a
Happy Passover
Mina Smith-Segal
Warm Passover
Greetings From
Ada & Melvin Gollub
26 MARCH 25, 2021
Mincha-Maariv Minyan of the
Beth Zion-Beth Israel Synagogue
JEWISH EXPONENT
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



T orah P ortion
Deep in the Trash: A Jewish Pride
BY RABBI JONAH RANK
Parshat Tzav
I DON’T KNOW if the Queen
of England disposes of her
own waste. Nor can I envision
her emptying the contents of
an indoor disposal bin into
a larger receptacle outside
Buckingham Palace.

Moreover, I doubt that
Queen Elizabeth II drives a
rubbish removal service vehicle
to transport the royal precinct’s
trash down to a landfill. But, if
video evidence of all this were
to surface, I would try to get
the British crown trending on
social media.

As Tzav, this week’s Torah
portion, demonstrates — an
ancient Israelite elite served
their people and their Lord by
taking out the trash.

Descendants of the first
Israelite High Priest, the
kohanim (‘priests’) acted as a
cleaning service. In Leviticus
6:4, while describing the
ashes that remain on the altar
designated the olah (i.e., the
‘whole-burnt’ sacrifice), God
commands Moses to ensure the
priest on-duty “will remove his
clothes and wear other clothes
and bring the ashes to outside
the camp — at a pure place.”
Whereas Jewish clergy
serving large institutions rarely
handle the trash, Leviticus
deems sacred the sanitation
work of the kohanim. In the late
12th century, Maimonides read
the verse above and declared
picking up the ash “one service
among the many services of
priesthood” (Mishneh Torah,
Hilkhot Temidin UMussafin
2:10). The medieval philosopher
went on to interpret the verse
closely, stipulating that the priest
wearing “’other’ [clothes] doesn’t
bespeak casual clothes — just
something ‘less’ uppity than the
primary [priestly] garb” (ibid.).

In his mind, the ‘other’ clothes
that the priest would don for
these ashen duties would still be
some holy uniform.

In one attack, however,
against Maimonides’ supposed
sanctifying of the priestly
ash trash service, the Turkish
Rabbi Yehudah Rosanes (1657–
1727), in his Mishneh LaMelekh
(responding to Maimonides’
previously cited passage),
called out Maimonides for what
appears to be some hypocrisy.

In fact, Maimonides does
backtrack, clearly stating
“removing that [ash] to the
‘outside’ is not a [sacred]
service” (ibid. 2:14). Whereas
a reader like Rabbi Avraham
ben David, writing in 12th
century France, pithily distin-
guished as two totally separate
activities picking up ashes and
disposing ashes (commenting
on ibid., 2:15) — Rabbi Yosef
Karo, in 16th century Safed,
understood ash lifting and ash
removing as two linked activ-
ities (as explained in his Kesef
Mishnah on ibid., 2:10). Still,
traditional scholars defending
Maimonides’ generous classi-
fication of ash pickup as
holy service have long found
themselves unable to defend
Maimonides’ mixing of these
messages. Truly though, whether
Maimonides was of two
opinions on the matter does
not matter. What we must ask
is: What could have made ash
disposal holy?
The priestly imagina-
tion that steers Leviticus is
obsessed with the idea of dirti-
ness. British anthropologist.

Mary Douglas considers “dirt
... a relative idea” (“Purity and
Danger,” ARK Edition, 1984,
p. 37). “Shoes,” she illustrates,
“are not dirty in themselves,
but it is dirty to place them
on the dining-table…” (ibid.).

The act of distinguishing where
something belongs or does not
belong is sacred priestly work.

This is why Leviticus deals with
purity and impurity, proper
sacrifices and improper sacri-
fices, yeses and nos, and the
beliefs of what renders Israelites
civilized or uncivilized.

So, for a fleeting but impactful
moment, Maimonides enter-
tained a message buried in
CAN DL E L IGHTIN G
March 26
April 2
the Torah: leaders who define
culture, by determining what is
or isn’t appropriate, must both
protect what we need and dispose
of that which we no longer need.

The priests — the ritual artisans
of ancient Israelite life — serve
as the mechanics of the altar, its
customer service agents, its chefs
and its cleaning crew.

Kohanim make the sacrifices
happen. And every sacrifice
leaves behind residue. (Even
the wholly burnt olah leaves
ashes.) Because the kohanim
cause the ashes, kohanim must
remove the ashes.

On the one hand, ash
removal work is beneath the
kohanim. They exchange
their professional garb for
something with less oomph.

On the other hand, who
could do this job better than
kohanim? Kohanim didn’t just
know every sacred nook of the
tabernacle where the altar was
housed and every holy cranny
of the encampment where the
Israelites rested. The kohanim
apparently even knew how
to travel, as per Leviticus 6:4,
“outside the camp” and still
find “a pure place.”
Incidentally, the kohanim
were a people to whom God
apportioned no land, a clan
who knew their way outside the
main domestic territory of the
Israelites, a family who lived off
of the generosity of donations,
7:01 p.m.

7:08 p.m.

and a team who cleaned holy
spaces and disposed trash for
other users.

Not all — but a good amount
— of the responsibilities and
economic profile of kohanim
mirror those of many blue-collar
workers employed by many
synagogues today. Without such
vital laborers as our custodians,
many synagogues would not be
operating. Many dues-paying
synagogue members have much
more in common with the
Queen of England than with
the kohanim of old.

When prosperity or privi-
lege distances many Jews from
the effects of wastefulness, let
us accept responsibility for
what we create and discard well
what we don’t need.

And if we need partners
in priestly work, let us not
disparage our institutions’
kohanim. l
Rabbi Jonah Rank is the director of
the Shul School at Kehilat HaNahar
in New Hope. The Board of Rabbis
of Greater Philadelphia is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on
Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. The opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own
and do not reflect the view of the
Board of Rabbis.

changing addresses?
DON’T MISS A SINGLE ISSUE OF THE
Call 215.832.0700 or email subscriptions@jewishexponent.com with your new address.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM JEWISH EXPONENT
MARCH 25, 2021
27