In the Garden of Eden, Adam, the first man, was in communion with the Creator and heard His voice. There was nothing he had to do to establish that connection with Yehovah because he lived in His presence.
After being expelled, from the earliest times, Adam’s descendants sought that connection with Yehovah through offerings and sacrifices.
Passing through our patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and specified in the Torah itself, the intention of the Almighty was for Israel to be a Kingdom of Kohanim (Priests), but given the circumstances, only Aaron and his descendants were the ones who carried out that ministry.
And what is a kohen (priest)? A kohen is someone whose mission is to establish a connection between the Almighty and the rest of the people. And to carry out that mission, the kohen must maintain a state of ritual purity that is above the level of ordinary people. In fact, the initiation ritual, which appears in this parashah and is complemented in Leviticus 8, required candidates to remain for seven days in the Tabernacle while daily sacrifices were offered, they were sprinkled with blood and anointed with oil.
The cohen (priest) in Israel had a crucial role in the spiritual life of Israel. Yeshua fulfilled a similar role outside the Temple in a period in which the corruption of the priestly caste was rife, and the Temple was in its final decades before its destruction by the Romans.
Today, 2000 years later and still without a Temple or priestly service, but having the example of Yeshua and the advice to follow in his footsteps, it is a good exercise in our spiritual development to consider how we should act on a day-to-day basis if we were to take the priestly role in our lives seriously, becoming a connection between the Creator and our circles of influence.
