Beth Shalom
Oceanside Jewish Center

Several years ago, after speaking about Parshat Emor, a member of my congregation approached me with a question. He was confused. He said, "I don't get it, Rabbi. You keep talking about the priesthood. I didn't think we Jews had priests. Isn't that Catholic?"

The problem, of course, was one of language. The word Kohen is usually translated as 'priest', and the word 'priest' has a very definite Christian connotation in our society. In the Bible, however, the word Kohen refers to the descendents of Aaron who were singled and made the religious functionaries of ancient Israel. The Torah has a great deal to say about this special subgroup. As a matter of fact, the third book of the Torah, the book of Leviticus is almost completely devoted to them. It is often referred to as Torat Kohanim, the law of the priests. Israel had one standard by which they were to live; the Kohanim had another.

Nowhere is this as clear as it is in today's Torah portion, Parshat Emor. Here we find a series of laws and standards by which the Kohanim were to conduct their daily lives. The Kohanim were not allowed to mourn like other people. They had to avoid contact with anything which could cause impurity. There were even special laws about who they could and could not marry.

At first glance all of these rituals seem irrelevant in today's day and age. After all, while we still have a remnant of the priesthood in the Jewish community, these laws appear to be of another time. They focus on ritual practices that do not affect most of us. They seem strange, mysterious and arbitrary.

Yet the message they deliver is an important one. Because of their standing in society, there was a special set of standards by which the Kohanim had to live. Their actions embodied Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of God's presence in the world. And when they failed to live up to this standard their actions could demean and desecrate God's presence in the world, not to mention in the community.

This may help us understand why the Jewish people are referred to as a Mamlechet Kohanim v'Goy Kadosh, as "A nation of priests and a holy people." Just as the Kohanim had a special standing visa vis the rest of their own people, so Israel was expected to act in a fashion that was dignified and respectful in the world at large. The Jewish people were a nation of priest not because they were better than others; they were expected to do so simply because God demanded more of them.

I believe that this is something that Israel and America have in common. America and Israel are the Kohanim of the world. They are the only two nations in the world today that were founded on a set of ideals that transcend political and social considerations. Each nation has a priestly role in the world. And whether we admit it or not, it is something that the world at large seems to understand. For Israel, that standard is built on the Torah and for America it is based in the constitution and our Declaration of Independence.

It is no accident that the Declaration of Independence begins, "We hold these truths to be self evident,' that all men are created equal and that they are endowed with inalienable rights", or that our coinage contains the words, "In God we trust." There is an implicit understanding in these statements that there is a higher set of standards to which we hold ourselves as Americans and that standard applies to all people.

That's not to say we live up to this standard all the time; the point is that it is always there and it is the measure of who we are.

Today, we Americans are ashamed. The searing pictures from Iraq that have appeared in the press in recent days have outraged and horrified us. They contain images of degradation and humiliation by American soldiers against Iraqi citizens.

It's not enough for us to apologize and to say that this is the actions of a few incorrigible individuals, that it does not reflect the goodness or the heart of the American people as a whole. We are responsible for one another, and the actions of the few reflect on our entire nation. That is why our declaration of independence begins with the word 'We.' The damage that has been done may be irreparable.

This is not just a matter of public relations. It is not just a question of who knew when and why the president was not told sooner. I am loathe to make this comparison but these pictures are almost as bad as some of the pictures from the holocaust of Nazi soldiers cutting off the beards of religious Jews or posing with naked Jewish woman before killing them. They are not just a matter of cruelty but of people taking perverse pleasure in humiliating others and treating them as something less than human.

And sadly, these pictures are the result of a war that is being conducted without vision or leadership, by a government that saw fit to lie to its own people in order to engage in hostile actions. When our government fails in its priestly 'value driven' role, is there any reason to assume that our military won't do the same?

Is Sadaam Hussein an evil man? Did he engage in acts of genocide against his own people? Are there still people in Iraq who would just as soon return to the old regime of terror and tyranny? Of course!

But this does not justify our actions. The end does not the means. America needs to step back and reassess its actions and goals. We need to ask ourselves why we are in Iraq. We need to look hard at the standards that are the source of our nation's greatness and we need to ask ourselves whether we have lived up to them. We have chosen to make ourselves a 'nation of priests' in the world; we cannot avoid the standards that go along with such standing.

My colleague, Rabbi Sholom Stern from Cedarhurst, shared a story with me this week that makes just this point. It seems that his sister was in Israel not long ago with a Hadassah group. They were scheduled to meet with a doctor from the hospital. As it turned out, the morning they were to meet him he was delayed because he was performing surgery on a Palestinian terrorist who only days before had killed Israelis. When the group learned that he had busy saving the life of a murderer, one of the women said, 'I guess you did that because you felt bound by the standard of medicine.' The doctor answered, 'I didn't save that man just because I'm a doctor or because I am concerned about what the world would say if I didn't. I did it to 'save the Jewish people!'

This doctor understood that when we fail to live up to our best standards of our community then we cease to be who we are. We fail not only the world; we fail ourselves as well.

Is there a double standard in the world by which we live? Do we demand more of ourselves than we demand of others? Thank God we do!

Where was the outrage earlier this week when a Palestinian terrorist killed a mother and her four children in cold blood in Israel? I cannot answer for the whole world. I can only answer for myself and for my community. When we allow ourselves to become like them then we will have lost of our very reason for existence.

Americans and Israelis are the Kohanim of the world. We don't always succeed in living up to this challenge but we are not free to ignore it either.

There are truths that are self evident to us as Jews and truths that are self evident to us as Americans: that we are all created in the image of God; that all human beings, including our enemies are of infinite worth; and that our standards of morality and justice apply at all times, especially in times of war.

We are all Kohanim. Let us remember, therefore, the words of Pirke Avot: Be like the disciples of Aaron the priest: Love peace and pursue peace; love your fellow beings and bring them closer to the standards of Torah.

Shabbat Shalom