פרשה: תצוה · עלייה: שלישי (תפארת)

ובצאתו ולא ימות. "and when he comes out, so that he will not die." It appears from this verse that if the High Priest's tunic did not have the bells that could be heard he would be guilty of the death penalty to be administered by Heaven. Were this not so and the verse had referred to the absence of the garment to which the bells were attached or to any of his special garments, the words: "so that he will not die" should have beeen written after the list of the garments was complete in verse 43. The fact that the Torah did not wait with this clause until then is to teach us that even the absence of the bells only made the High Priest liable to death at the hands of Heaven. Repetition of the threat of death in verse 43 refers to a priest who serves without one or more of the garments he is to wear at that time.

קדש לה׳. "Holy unto G'd." This means that as long as the words "Holy unto G'd" appeared on the headband (golden plate), this was acceptable. When the Talmud said in Shabbat 63 that the words were arranged in two rows, this means that the name of י־ה was engraved on top and the word קדש followed by the letter ל underneath. Such an arrangement of the words was not mandatory. You will find there that Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yossi reported that while in Rome he personally had seen the ציץ which the Romans had captured, and that the words "Holy unto G'd" were engraved on it in a single line. This proves that the order in which the words were engraved did not matter. When Maimonides wrote in chapter nine of his treatise on Kley Hamikdosh that the words appeared in two rows, with the word קדש in the second line, this does not present a difficulty. He referred only to the preferred way of engraving these words.

לרצון להם לפני ה׳. "that they may be accepted on their behalf by G'd with goodwill." We need to understand why the two words "Holy unto G'd" possessed the ability to attract G'd's goodwill. Perhaps the word "Holy" referred to the people of Israel. We find Israel described as "Holy" by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 2,3). The word "unto G'd" are meant to convey that the Jewish people as a whole are devoted and dedicated to G'd. This fact (and not merely the words on the ציץ) ensure G'd's goodwill towards the people. This is the mystical dimension of the words אני לדודי ודודי לי, in Song of Songs 6,3. Solomon means that "if I am devoted to G'd, as a result G'd i.e. דודי, will turn His benevolent attention towards me."

לכבוד ולתפארת. "for splendour and for beauty." The reason the Torah repeats this expression again is to allude to something we have learned in Zevachim 18. The Talmud there states that if the priestly garments were soiled or torn they were unfit to be worn when the priests were about to perform service in the Temple. According to a Baraitha quoted there the garments had to be made from new cloth. The Talmud there also says that if they were new this was alright whereas if they were old or made from recycled material this was inadmissible. Another Baraitha is quoted saying that recycled material was acceptable but that the requirement that they be made from new material was recommended but not mandatory. The word לכבוד concerns the rule that they were not to be torn, an absolute law, whereas the word ולתפארת refers to the garments being new as a condition which was not mandatory though desirable. This is the reason the Torah had to write both expressions. If our interpretation were not correct, the Torah would have written only the word לתפארת which implies more than the word לכבוד. [There is an opinion offered in the Talmud according to which the garments which became dirty as a result of contact with the אבנט, the girdle, did ot become disqualified. However, if they were dirty when the priest put them on they were disqualified. Ed.]

והלבשת אותם…ומשחת אותם, "and you will dress Aaron and his sons in them and anoint them, etc." The Torah means that the priests are first to put on the garments and that they are to be anointed while still wearing these garments. The act of anointing the priests with the anointing oil helped to make them into priests. When the Torah speaks of ומלאת את ידם, instead of merely of ומלאת אותם, this may mean that the priests would be affected emotionally by this procedure so that they would become recipients of G'd's kindness, known as "His great Hand." Students of the Kabbalah will understand what I refer to.

וקדשת אותם, "and you will sanctify them." This refers to the performance of the sacrificial service which (Moses) would perform in order to sanctify them. This had to be mentioned here in order for us to know that until Aaron and his sons wore the priestly garments and had been anointed, the sacrificial service performed by Moses did not accomplish the change in their status.

ועשה להם מכנסי בד, "and make for them pants of linen, etc." Why did the Torah wait so long with the commandment to make pants for the priests? Inasmuch as the Torah had instructed Moses to dress the priests in their service garments I would have thought that this instruction included the need for Moses to put on their pants. In order for us to know that the priests were to put on the pants themselves, the Torah delayed telling us about the pants until after commanding Moses to put the other garments on Aaron and his sons. We must not conclude from the positioning of this commandment that the pants were the last garment the priests were to put on. The Torah mentions in Leviticus 16,4 that the pants should cover the flesh of the priests, and we learned in Yuma 23 that the pants were the first garment the priests were to put on. Our interpretation of the delay in mentioning the need for the priestly garments to include pants is correct then.

Another reason for listing the pants as the last of the priestly garments may be the Torah's intention to position this commandment immediately adjacent to the warning in verse 43 for the priests not to become guilty of an iniquity as a result of which they would die. Had the Torah included the commandment for the priests to wear special pants when the other garments were listed, I might have concluded that the warning in verse 43 applied only to the garments other than the pants seeing that the reason the priests had to wear pants was for the sake of chastity, something applicable to every male, not just to priests. By positioning the requirement that the priests were to have special pants to be worn when they performed the service in the Temple, the Torah made it clear that whatever rules applied to the other priestly garments also applied to their pants.