Musar sobre Exodo 29:33

I believe we can use this explanation to answer a difficulty which arises from Exodus 29,33: "These things shall be eaten only by those for whom expiation has been made with them when they were ordained and consecrated; they may not be eaten by a layman for they are holy." The meaning of the verse is that the owners of the animals receive their expiation through the priests' eating. The difficulty is that Aaron and his sons consumed these parts while being owners, whereas Moses was the priest performing the sacrificial service described in the relevant section of the Torah. We can only answer this by viewing Aaron and his sons as being both priests and owners at one and the same time. They had become priests by the very fact that Moses "sacrificed them," i.e. בקרבתם לה' coming close to G–d. They became similar to the archangel Michael who, in his capacity as Celestial High Priest, offers the souls of the righteous as a sacrifice. We find an allusion to this comparison between the task of Aaron and that of the archangel מיכאל in (9,4) כי היום י-ה-ו-ה נראה אליכם where we have the letters of the names of Aaron and מיכאל side by side in the last two words of the verse. In comparison to Moses, Aaron and his two sons were indeed the owners of the sacrifices (מילואים), seeing that Moses at that time occupied a position even higher than that of the High Priest. The reason for this was that Moses had never been a זר, mundane person, and did not have to be raised to his spiritually elevated position as did his brother Aaron. We have explained that he was holy from the moment he left his mother's womb and how the whole house was filled with light at that time. To repeat, in respect to the מילואים Aaron and his sons were both owners and priests. Because this is so the religious ruling for all future generations evolved that by the priests eating the parts of the sacrifice allotted to them the owners obtain forgiveness.