Do Clothes Make the Man?
‘When Kohanim Are Wearing Their Holy Garments’
(Zevachim 17b)
Our Gemara explains that a Kohen must wear his special garments (bigdei kehunah) during his avodah – service in the Beis HaMikdash, for if not, his avodah is disqualified. If we examine the halachos of bigdei kehunah, we are faced with a quandary. We seemingly can define the obligation to wear them in two ways: (1) The Kohen is in need of the garments to be fit for his avodah, and (2) The avodah of the Beis HaMikdash needs the garments to be valid.
In other words, it could be that a Kohen needs the garments as they qualify him for serving in the Beis HaMikdash, and it could be that he is missing nothing: he is a kohen fit for avodah, but in conformity with the rules for serving in the Beis HaMikdash, the avodah must be performed only while wearing bigdei kehunah. The garments, therefore, are not needed by the Kohen but by the avodah. These two definitions are not contradictory: The garments could be needed for the Kohen and for the avodah.
Two Levels of Kehunah
From our sugya, which says “When their garments are on them, their kehunah is on them,” we derive that the garments are needed to qualify a Kohen for his avodah in the Beis HaMikdash (the first possibility set forth above). But we still have to clarify if the garments are part of the halachos of the avodah of the Beis HaMikdash.
It is important that we delineate the difference in required garments of the two levels of kehuna. A kohen hedyot (ordinary Kohen) wears four garments (trousers, a shirt, a belt, and a hat), while the Kohen Gadol wears eight (trousers, a shirt, a belt, a coat, the eifod, the choshen, a turban, and the tzitz).
A Kohen Hedyot Who Serves on Yom Kippur
In his Asvan D’oraisa (kelal 19), Rabbi Yosef Engel considers this question and refines it with the following example: What about a kohen hedyot, wearing his four garments, who, ipso facto, performs the avodah of the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur? If the garments are required for the halachos of serving in the Beis HaMikdash, is it possible that the Torah’s command that only the Kohen Gadol perform the avodah on Yom Kippur is due to the fact that he (and only he) is the one who wears the eight garments that are needed? If so, the kohen hedyot is punishable by death, as our sugya teaches applies to a Kohen lacking any of his garments.
However, if the garments are a requirement for the kohen, this Kohen wore all his garments and only transgressed the positive mitzvah that the avodah of Yom Kippur should be performed only by the Kohen Gadol.
Nadav And Avihu
Rav Engel resolves this question in the following manner. The Torah (Vayikra 10:1-2) relates that Nadav and Avihu, the two sons of Aaron, died in the midst of their service before Hashem. The Midrash (Vaykrah Rabbah 20:6) offers numerous reasons for their death, one of them being that they were lacking the proper garments; they did not wear a me’il (coat), one of the garments of the Kohen Gadol, when they offered ketores (incense) in the Kodesh haKodashim.
The Rosh comments (Responsa kelal 13:21) that though they were not kohanim gedolim, their offering incense required them to wear a me’il, as that is an avodah of the Kohen Gadol. Thus, we see that the bigdei kodesh are needed as a requirement for the avodah in the Beis HaMikdash, and since the avodah of the ketores was given to the Kohen Gadol, its avodah requires the full eight garments.
An Atonement
Rav Engel also offers support for his opinion from the Gemara (infra. Zevachim 88b), which explains that bigdei kehunah are mechaper – they serve as atonement for certain sins – detailing which sins are atoned for by each garment. Now, if the bigdei kehunah are needed by a Kohen only to qualify him to serve in the Beis HaMikdash, the attribute of atoning for sins is superfluous.
However, if a Kohen must wear them because the halachos of the Beis HaMikdash determine that they must be performed only in bigdei kehunah, it is obvious that the garments also atone just as the avodah of the Beis HaMikdash – the sacrifices and the like which atone for sins. (Rav Engel also considered this question in his Beis HaOtzar II, kelal 10, and quotes the Ohr HaChayyim on Shemos 28:2, indicating that, in his opinion, the garments are not a requirement for the avodah. See Chiddushei Rabbi Yitzchak Zeev, who thus explained Rambam’s opinion in Sefer HaMitzvos 33, that donning the bigdei kehunah is counted as a mitzvah in itself.)