Q&A: A priest who married someone forbidden to a priest, regarding the priestly blessing and receiving the first aliyah according to Maimonides
A priest who married someone forbidden to a priest, regarding the priestly blessing and receiving the first aliyah according to Maimonides
Question
Rabbi Michi, hello!
I sent the email below to a friend who is close to Rabbi Ratzon Arusi … the same question I asked you on WhatsApp, but in expanded form.
I would be very happy to hear your opinion according to your unique methodology (nowadays) in halakhic ruling.
It’s really not urgent, since this is not a practical question. Only if and when you have time.
Many thanks!.
Best regards,
———- Forwarded message ———
Yoel, hello.
Do you have a way to pass this question on to the great Rabbi Ratzon Arusi, may he live long and well? The question is not practical—that is, this case is not actually before me. Rather, the question came up for me while learning the Beit Yosef.
To the great Rabbi Ratzon Arusi, may he live long and well.
Hello.
I would like to ask Your Honor what Maimonides’ opinion is regarding a priest married to someone forbidden to him … may he recite the priestly blessing and receive the first aliyah to the Torah?
As is well known, the Shulchan Arukh rules in Orach Chayim 128:40:
A priest who married a divorced woman may not recite the priestly blessing, and we do not accord him priestly sanctity even to read first from the Torah; and even if he divorced her or she died, he remains disqualified until he vows, before the public, to abstain from benefit from the women forbidden to him.
And so too the Beit Yosef wrote on the Tur:
40 – We learned in the seventh chapter of Bekhorot (45b): One who marries women in transgression is disqualified until he vows abstention from benefit, and one who becomes impure through the dead is disqualified until he accepts upon himself not to become impure through the dead. The halakhic authorities did not mention these disqualifications regarding the priestly blessing, and perhaps the reason is that since if he served before making such a vow or before accepting this upon himself he did not profane the service, as Maimonides wrote in chapter 6 of the Laws of Entering the Sanctuary (9), therefore he may recite the priestly blessing even ab initio. This is similar to what I wrote regarding a drunk person: wherever, if he entered the Temple, he would be exempt, he may recite the priestly blessing. And this also appears from what Maimonides wrote (chapter 15, law 3) regarding a priest who killed someone or worshipped idols, that other sins do not prevent him, which implies that even if he has not repented of them, we do not prevent him. But our great teacher Rabbi Joseph ibn Habib, of blessed memory, wrote that it appears to him that according to everyone, a priest who is married to a divorced woman should not recite the priestly blessing and should not receive an aliyah to the Torah, for at every moment he persists in his rebellion. And in siman 135 he wrote as follows: It is also written in the name of Master Shmuel: a priest who intentionally became impure through the dead who are not among the seven close relatives or a corpse with no one to bury it, is disqualified from the platform and from all priestly privileges until he repents, for we learned: one who marries women in transgression is disqualified until he vows abstention from benefit, and one who becomes impure through the dead until he accepts it upon himself. And the Rashba also wrote in a responsum (part 7, siman 21) that a priest who married a divorced woman is not accorded priestly sanctity even to read first from the Torah; and even if he divorced her or she died, he remains disqualified until he vows before the public to abstain from benefit from the women forbidden to him, as stated in Bekhorot. And as a matter of halakhic ruling, since the decisors did not explicitly permit it, we follow Master Shmuel and the Rashba, who explicitly forbade it:
But I saw that the source for this law in tractate Bekhorot (45b) does not refer to the priestly blessing or to the first aliyah to the Torah, but only to the priest’s Temple service:
Mishnah: These are valid in a person but invalid in an animal: it and its offspring, a tereifah, one born by caesarean section, and one with which a transgression was committed, and one that killed a person. And one who marries women in transgression is disqualified until he vows to prohibit benefit from her, and one who becomes impure through the dead is disqualified until he accepts upon himself that he will not become impure through the dead.
Then I looked into Maimonides and saw that he brought this in the Laws of Entering the Sanctuary regarding the Temple service. But in the Laws of the Priestly Blessing (15:3) he wrote:
How does transgression apply? A priest who killed a person, even though he repented, may not recite the priestly blessing, as it says, “Your hands are full of blood,” and it is written, “And when you spread forth your hands…” And a priest who worshipped stars, whether under compulsion or inadvertently, even though he repented, never recites the priestly blessing, as it says, “But the priests of the high places shall not ascend…” and blessing is like service, as it says, “to serve Him and to bless in His name.” Likewise a priest who converted to idolatry, even if he recanted, never recites the priestly blessing. But other sins do not prevent him.
And plainly, a priest who married someone forbidden to him—we do not prevent him.
However, I saw that many commentators explain that with other sins, if the priest repented, then we do not prevent him; unlike bloodshed and idolatry, where even if he repented, we still prevent him. But I would have expected Maimonides to write that explicitly.
Not only that, Maimonides wrote in law 6:
A priest who has none of these things that prevent the priestly blessing, even if he is not a scholar and is not careful in the commandments, or people speak badly about him, or his business dealings are not honest—such a person recites the priestly blessing, and we do not prevent him, because this is a positive commandment upon every priest fit for the priestly blessing, and we do not say to a wicked person: add wickedness and refrain from the commandments.
And plainly, this is not talking about someone who simply is not sufficiently meticulous, but about a wicked person. More than that: if he is wicked, that implies he has not repented, because if he had repented, he would not be wicked.
And also, I saw in the Bach (siman 128) that he wrote:
As for what he wrote, “But for other sins we do not prevent him”—so wrote Maimonides, and he means to say: even if done intentionally, and even if he did not repent, we still do not prevent him. And if you ask: since a verse was needed regarding one who killed a person and one who apostatized, then wherever there is no verse it is obvious that we do not prevent him—one can answer that since we hold that for three sins one must be killed rather than transgress, it might have entered your mind that their law is also the same regarding the priestly blessing; therefore he teaches us that for other sins we do not prevent him, even if he transgressed sexual immorality intentionally and did not repent, since there is no verse. And the reason for the matter is that we find that the Holy One, blessed be He, acts as an advocate regarding this sin and says, “Sin crouches at the door,” as stated in the first chapter of Yoma (end of 19b); therefore it is not as severe as idolatry and bloodshed regarding the priestly blessing.
And regarding what the Beit Yosef wrote: “But our great teacher Rabbi Joseph ibn Habib, of blessed memory, wrote that it appears to him that according to everyone, a priest who is married to a divorced woman should not recite the priestly blessing and should not receive an aliyah to the Torah, for at every moment he persists in his rebellion … And as a matter of halakhic ruling, since the decisors did not explicitly permit it, we follow Master Shmuel and the Rashba, who explicitly forbade it,” I did not understand how the silence of all the Geonim and medieval authorities before Rabbi Joseph ibn Habib led him to conclude that “according to everyone, a priest who is married to a divorced woman should not recite the priestly blessing and should not receive an aliyah to the Torah.” I was reminded of the Mishnah:
Mishnah Yadayim 4:3
On that day they said: What is the law regarding Ammon and Moab in the seventh year? Rabbi Tarfon decreed the poor tithe, and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah decreed the second tithe. Rabbi Ishmael said: Elazar ben Azariah, the burden of proof is upon you to show why you are stringent, for whoever is stringent must bring proof.
And of what Tiferet Yisrael wrote on this:
To teach: that anything for which we do not know a reason to forbid, is permitted without needing a reason, for the Torah did not mention all permitted things, only the forbidden ones.
So I would like to ask Your Honor: what is Maimonides’ opinion? May a priest married to someone forbidden to him recite the priestly blessing and receive the first aliyah to the Torah?
With thanks and blessings to Your Honor,
Answer
Hello.
The Beit Yosef wonders why the decisors did not mention this regarding the priestly blessing and receiving an aliyah to the Torah, and answers that perhaps this applies only ab initio and does not disqualify, in accordance with what Maimonides says in chapter 6, law 9 of the Laws of Entering the Sanctuary, that if he served he did not profane the service. I do not understand how he sees in Rabbi Joseph ibn Habib and the Rashba a different opinion. They say he is forbidden to recite the priestly blessing, but they still did not say that if he did so, his act is invalid even after the fact—that he profaned it. And in truth I am puzzled by this whole possibility in the Beit Yosef: even if it is only an ab initio rule, why didn’t they mention it? Especially according to Maimonides, who here explicitly mentioned a rule that applies only ab initio; and from the fact that he did not mention the priestly blessing, it seems that even ab initio we do not prevent him. And likewise in chapter 15, law 3 of the Laws of Prayer he brought these laws, that for other sins we do not prevent him. (Though there it may be that it is permitted even ab initio.) And you are right that the commentators who say that only if he repented do we not prevent him are forcing Maimonides’ language.
Therefore it appears that, plainly speaking, according to most decisors we do not prevent a priest who married a divorced woman from reciting the priestly blessing. True, the Shulchan Arukh wrote that we do, but in light of its implausible explanation in the Beit Yosef, it seems that he is not correct in explaining the opinion of Maimonides and the other decisors.
And perhaps we can reduce the dispute if we say that according to everyone, ab initio it is not proper to do so, but we do not prevent him, and he has not profaned anything.
In truth, the very matter of preventing him requires discussion, because plainly this is not the same rule as the one that disqualifies Temple service, since this does not disqualify. Rather, it is simply not appropriate to give public standing and honor to offenders. But that is a general rule and does not pertain specifically to the laws of priesthood, the priestly blessing, and Temple service.
I do not agree with your inference from law 6, that Maimonides also means a wicked person with respect to other sins. He explicitly gives examples that are not sins, and if you were right, he should have given examples דווקא of actual sins, which would be a much greater novelty—that even then we do not prevent him. In my opinion, the term “wicked person” there is just a turn of phrase.
In any case, we really do see there that if there is no principled impediment, we are forbidden to prevent him, since we would thereby cause him to neglect a positive commandment. So the question is whether ab initio it is still proper for him himself to refrain, and only we do not prevent him, or whether even ab initio he should recite the priestly blessing. Seemingly, the reason of neglecting a positive commandment points to the second understanding, but one can understand that although he has a positive commandment, the congregation deserves a more worthy one to bless them. Therefore, ab initio it would be proper for him not to recite the priestly blessing, but we have no right to prefer our own benefit—that we should have a worthy blesser—over his positive commandment.
So much for the view of Maimonides and the decisors.
But as a practical ruling, the Talmudic sources do not say this regarding the priestly blessing. Therefore it is hard to accept an actual prohibition, even if some medieval authorities wrote so. The medieval authorities cannot create a prohibition. (Though here they are only interpreting the prohibition in the Talmud as applying also to the priestly blessing, but as noted, there is a major dispute about that.)
Still, by simple reasoning it seems inappropriate to allow such a priest to recite the priestly blessing because he is an offender. This seems so obvious to me that it hardly needs saying. In my opinion, the disqualification of a wicked person from testimony is also for this reason. After all, there are categories of wicked people disqualified from testimony who are not suspected of lying, yet they are still disqualified. Plainly this is because one should not give them honor before the public and render judgment based on their words. And perhaps this explains why we require a wicked person whose offense carries lashes, since lashes are a matter of punishment by a religious court administered in public view, and it is not proper to give a person who has been publicly degraded honor in court. It is not because of the severity of the sin but because of its public nature.
All the more so, the grandson of an a fortiori argument, to let him bless the Jewish people while he is openly and publicly married to someone forbidden to him. In my opinion, such a thing should not be permitted—not because of a disqualification in the laws of priesthood as such, but because of the element of wrongdoing involved. Of course, according to Maimonides it seems not to be so; even according to my explanation, “we do not prevent him” means that ab initio he should not recite the priestly blessing, but we do not stop him. But reason suggests that we should stop him. Perhaps Maimonides writes that we do not prevent him from the standpoint of the laws of priestly disqualification, but he is not addressing the proper attitude toward offenders in general. This also is not necessarily a halakhic prohibition against giving honor to offenders, but it seems to me a simple meta-halakhic consideration, and according to this it is even clearer why Maimonides did not address it. One can also distinguish that, as is known, in Maimonides the placement of a law is deliberate and one can infer from it. In the Laws of Entering the Sanctuary he is speaking about the laws of priestly disqualification, and that exists only for the three most severe sins and not for other sins. But in the Laws of the Priestly Blessing he is in practice speaking within the laws of the prayer leader and the priestly blessing, and there considerations of honoring offenders come in (like an unfit prayer leader).
This is similar to what we once discussed about counting secular Jews toward a minyan. If he does not believe and does not accept the very concept of prayer, he is a potted plant and does not count. There is no need for sources on that.
And perhaps this is what the author of the Shulchan Arukh intended, and even if it is not Maimonides’ view, he writes to forbid it on grounds of honoring offenders and not on grounds of priestly disqualification. And perhaps Maimonides did not deal with that. As is known, the author of the Shulchan Arukh, unlike Maimonides, is not careful to distinguish between laws and proper customs. Though on second thought this is somewhat forced, because in the Beit Yosef he seems to rule this based on the laws of priestly disqualification.
In short: practically speaking, it is hard to prohibit it halakhically, but even harder to permit it in practice and on the level of simple reasoning.
Perhaps one could discuss a priest who married a divorced woman innocently, not knowing the prohibition at all, and is in the category of a child taken captive among non-Jews. He might perhaps be able to recite the priestly blessing, but even that only if he believes in God and accepts the commandments. But this is only a hypothetical case, since the rabbi who married them certainly would have informed him of the prohibition.
That is my view.