Tafsiran Imamat 21:2: Rashi, Kli Yakar, Or HaChaim & Tur HaArokh

כי אם לשארו BUT FOR HIS KIN [THAT IS NEAR TO HIM] — שאר here denotes his wife (Sifra, Emor, Section 1 4; Yevamot 22b).

For his kin [relative]. The reason for the prohibition of impurity is because of the spirit of impurity that remains attached to the human body. Therefore it is said he shall not become impure for a soul and it does not say “by a soul” because the soul itself is pure and has no aspect of impurity. However, the soul is the cause of impurity because all other living creatures that do not have a rational soul but only a life force — their death is merely the separation of the four elements, and the Angel of Death is not involved with them at all. Therefore, they do not have severe impurity. But the human soul does not depart except through the Angel of Death, who removes it from there against its will, as our Sages said (Avot 4:29), “Against your will you die.” He [the Angel of Death] comes from the side of impurity and brings impurity upon the body. This excludes the righteous and unique individuals of the generation whose death is by a divine kiss, not through the Angel of Death, and they have no aspect of impurity at all. Therefore, our Sages said (Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 3:1) that on the day Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi died, the priesthood was suspended because the priests did not become impure from him at all.

כי אם לשארו, except to his wife, etc. Torat Kohanim explains that the meaning of the word שארו is "his wife." The words הקרוב, "who is close," a word which is not really necessary, refers to the exclusion of ארוסה, a woman betrothed to a priest who does not yet live in his home, the final marriage vows not having been completed as yet. She is excluded from relatives for the sake of whose burial a priest must defile himself as a mourner. The word אליו "to him," another extraneous word, teaches that the death of a divorced wife of a priest also does not qualify as an excuse for her erstwhile husband to defile himself ritually. The reason is that such a woman is no longer קרוב, close to her former husband the priest. Why does the Torah add the words לאמו ולאביו? Seeing the mother is not of the same tribe as the son (or is subject to being demoted in status if she survives her husband the priest), I might have thought that the son may not defile himself at her death. The Torah therefore had to tell us that the son is to defile himself at his mother's death. Once we have established this, why would I have thought that the son must not defile himself over the death of his father unless the Torah spelled this out for us? Would I not have reasoned that inasmuch as the son must defile himself at his mother's death even though the mother was most likely not the daughter of a priest, the son most certainly has to defile himself at his father's death seeing the father was a priest also (and is not subject to lose his status through the death of his spouse)? The Torah had to write that the son who is a priest must defile himself due to the death of his father although we do not know for a fact that the man who described himself as his father really was his father. Paternity is established only by reason of חזקה not by reason of definitive knowledge such as maternity. The scholars of Luneil raised an objection to this Torat Kohanim. They felt there was no need for the Torah to mention that the son must defile himself at the death of his father as I could have arrived at this legislation by learning a קל וחומר from his mother. They reasoned that the son has to defile himself precisely because either the father is a priest who does not cause himself to be demoted and as such qualifies as a close relative even more than the mother who is subject to demotion in status; or there is no certainty that his father is his real father in which case the son is not a priest and there is no reason he cannot defile himself at the death of this man. [the scholars of Luneil described the son as a bastard, something I have not been able to understand. Why could the father not simply have been a non-priest claiming to be a priest? Ed.]