Komentarz do Kapłańska 21:2

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

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.]

כי אם לשארו הקרוב אליו, לאמו ולאביו, “except for a near relative; (or) on account of his mother or of his father, etc.” If he is a priest of the regular category, he may or must contaminate himself on account of the above-mentioned (and some other) relatives. This is why the mother here is mentioned before the father. In the case of the High Priest when even contamination on account of wife, father and mother, is prohibited, the Torah mentions the father ahead of the mother (verse 11). The Torah does not differentiate between mother and father, though we might have thought that the “father” does not need to be mentioned separately, since even the mother whose identity as mother is beyond question is out of bounds.

כי אם לשארו, “except for his wife.” The sages explain that the word שאר means “wife,” i.e. someone whose relationship is that of shared flesh. The Torah adds the word הקרוב, “which is physically close,” to exclude a wife who has been betrothed to him but has not yet completed the marriage ceremony and moved into her husband’s home (חופה). Similarly, a divorced wife is also no longer considered part of her former husband’s flesh so that her ex-husband if a priest may defile himself in order to actively participate in her funeral (compare Sifra Emor 1,4).
Even though a priest is called “holy,” and the Torah warns us that due to his elevated status he must not defile himself with a corpse, it is a positive commandment that he does defile himself when his wife has died. It is incumbent upon him to actively participate in her funeral. Should he be unwilling to do so, the court may force him to do so against his will. Sifra 1,12 reports of a certain priest by the name of Joseph whose wife died on the eve of Passover and he did not want to defile himself at her funeral and thereby forego the Passover offering. The court forced him to defile himself by participating in his wife’s funeral. The defilement the Torah speaks about is being in the same house, or even standing under the branches of the same tree as the body concerned. Not only direct contact with the corpse is forbidden. Whatever applies to the priest’s participation in his wife’s funeral also applies to his participating in the funeral of his mother and father. However, subsequent to the funeral, this same priest must not again defile himself by visiting the grave of his wife or parents in the cemetery and defying the rules of ritual purity. Even at the time of the funeral the priest is not allowed to roam in the cemetery and thereby contaminate himself through the proximity of other graves he has come too close too. This is what the sages (Shemot Rabbah 5,14) had in mind when they asked the rhetorical question: “who has ever seen a priest in a cemetery?”

“His kin” [refers] to none other than his wife. I.e., “his kin” that is written here, (see Tosefos Yom Tov in Bava Basra chapter Yeish Nochalin [Mishnah 1]. You might ask that it should have written הקרובה (to whom he is closely related) in the feminine form? The answer is that wherever it is written שאר (kin) it means שאר בשר (blood kin) and thus it is as if the verse had written שאר בשר. And since בשר is masculine, it writes the masculine form הקרוב. (Divrei Dovid) You might ask that if so, it should have said “and for his mother” with a vav, since שארו refers to something else. It seems that שארו actually refers to his mother and his father mentioned afterwards as they are his close relatives and his flesh. However, since one could ask [that if so], why does the Torah writes שארו, since afterwards it explicitly says to whom he may become defiled. To answer this they said that it includes his wife, because besides his wife there is no close relative of his [not already mentioned]. We need to find a reason why, in truth, the Torah does not mention the wife separately as it mentions his mother and father. It seems that we learn from this that regarding his wife too, there is a distinction [to teach us] that he does not defile himself for his betrothed. This is what the Torah is saying: he defiles himself for his wife whose marital status is similar to that of his mother and his father, but for his betrothed he is forbidden to defile himself. (The Pa’anei’ach Raza writes) that here it says “for his mother and his father,” and regarding the Kohein Godol it says “for his father and his mother,” because in both cases it goes from the obvious to the less obvious. Here, regarding the regular kohein who defiles himself for them, it says that not only for his mother who is certainly [his mother] does he obviously defile himself, but even for his father who is in doubt [as maybe his mother conceived from someone else] he defiles himself. And regarding the Kohein Godol who does not defile himself, it says that not only for his father does he obviously not defile himself, but even for his mother he should not defile himself. (Divrei Dovid)

כי אם לשארו הקרוב אליו, “except for his kin that is close to him;” according to Torat Kohanim, the word הקרוב אליו, excludes a girl only betrothed to him who has not yet become his wife in the full meaning of the word. Seeing that the priest may not defile himself on account of a woman only betrothed to him, it is clear that he may defile himself on account of a sister who is betrothed but not married yet. Concerning the words הקרובה אליו, Rashi explains that they include a sister who is betrothed. This makes sense, as seeing that an ordinary priest may not defile himself in order to bury a woman betrothed to him, it is logical that he should be allowed to defile himself for a sister who is only betrothed. If his sister’s husband to be had been a priest, he would not have been permitted to busy herself with her funeral. The Talmud in tractate Yevamot folio 22, understands the word שארו as referring to the priest’s properly married wife. This is also in agreement of what is written in verse 4: לא יטמא בעל בעמיו להחלו, “a husband shall not defile himself for his wife’s corpse if she had not been legally permitted to be the wife of a priest.” Unless the clause להחלו, “to disgrace him,” applied to his “wife,” he would, of course, be permitted to defile himself on her corpse. Furthermore, the fact that the Torah makes a distinction between a sister who has remained a virgin, (verse three) and it describes such a sister as הקרובה אליו, “who is close to him seeing that she had not been married,” by adding: “he may defile himself on her account,” it is clear that if she had been married already, her brother the priest, would not be permitted to defile himself at her funeral. The reason is simply that in that event her husband is considered as closer to her than her brother, though the former is a blood relative. The degree of relationship through marriage has been spelled out in the Torah already in Genesis 2,24, where the Torah described the bond of marriage as making “one flesh” out of husband and wife. There is no greater degree of קרובה, physical intimacy, than that.

הקרובה אליו, “who is related to him;” she is related to him only as long as she has not married. As soon as his sister is betrothed this relationship has ended, halachically. (Talmud tractate Yevamot folio 29)

לאמו ולאביו, “for his father or his mother” he may defile himself. In this instance the Torah mentioned the mother first, whereas in verse 11 where the Torah prohibits the High Priest from defiling himself on account of his parents’ death the Torah mentions the father before the mother. Perhaps seeing that the Torah had first mentioned a female relative of the priest when introducing the subject of ritual defilement and using the priest’s wife as an example of whose funeral overrides the legislation, the Torah felt that it wanted to continue with female examples. Had the Torah written: כי אם לשארו לאביו ולאמו, the sequence would not have been consistent as female, male, and female, in that order would have seemed illogical. Alternatively, the Torah mentioned the mother first as there is no doubt about the maternity of a person’s mother, whereas there is always some doubt about the paternity of someone claiming to be the father. The Torah therefore proceeds from that which is obvious, i.e. the duty to defile himself on account of one’s mother’s death, to the less obvious and to include the father in that legislation although there is no absolute certainty that he was indeed the father.
When it comes to prohibiting the High Priest to defile himself on account of the death of his parents, the opposite consideration is in place. Not only must the High Priest not defile himself on account of a father (who may not be a father), but even the death of his mother does not entitle him to defile himself at her funeral.
The reason the Torah limits the sister to one who is still a “virgin,” something that is presumed seeing she has not yet been married, is to exclude an unmarried sister who has been the victim of a rapist. The word הקרובה, “who is close to him,” means that even though his sister may have been betrothed, as long as she was not fully married her status as a close relative of her brother the priest has not been affected. The apparently extraneous word אליו, “to him,” in our verse refers to an unmarried sister who is past the age of puberty. The words אשר לא היתה לאיש, “who has not been wed to a man,” include a girl whose hymen has been ruptured through penetration by some instrument other than a man’s member. She retains her status as a virginal sister. Maimonides (Hilchot Aveilut 2,10) rules that a priest must defile himself on account of such sisters.

Our author does not consider the objection of the scholars of Luneil as serious seeing our verse is concerned with permitting something which had so far been forbidden to the parties concerned. We cannot permit something which was forbidden by using the קל וחומר (according to the principle דיו לבוא מן הדין כנדון) as our exegetical instrument. All a קל וחומר can accomplish is to teach that a situation is similar to the one which forms the basis of the קל וחומר; It cannot teach additional halachot of a more stringent nature. The Torah permits the son to defile himself for the sake of near relatives whereas the prohibition to defile himself at the death of more distant relatives remains in force. Furthermore, in the event that the son does not want to defile himself, he is forced to do so as part of honouring his father who has died. This is the meaning of the words לה יטמא, "he must defile himself for her sake." Torat Kohanim explain these words by saying: "it is a positive commandment for every priest to defile himself at the death of any of the seven relatives mentioned in our verse." While it is true that the Torah wrote this expression only next to the sister of the priest, Torat Kohanim already explained this in connection with a true story involving a priest called Joseph whose wife died on Passover eve and the priest did not want to defile himself so as not to forego the commandment to offer the Passover sacrifice, etc. The local rabbinic authorities forced that husband to defile himself and take part in the burial of his wife. Thus far the story related in Torat Kohanim. The story proves that the authorities did not restrict the meaning of the words לה יטמא as applicable only in the event a priest loses a sister. What all this proves is that one must defile oneself for the sake of any of the relatives enumerated in verses 2 and 3. It follows that if I had derived the directive to defile oneself at the death of one's father based on exegesis alone I could not have arrived at such a law as I would not have been able to be certain that the man who died was indeed the father of the son described here. I certainly would not have been entitled to refrain from offering the Passover sacrifice if such a "father" had died on the eve of Passover. Doubts concerning the application of a biblical commandment cannot be resolved through abrogation of that commandment, even temporarily. Not only would such a son not be permitted to defile himself on the father's grave based on the doubt (according to Maimonides and Pri Chadash who hold that doubt concerning a biblical commandment's applicability may be resolved by a lenient ruling), but even according to those who hold that we never apply a lenient ruling when the doubt concerns a biblical injunction the son could still not defile himself merely on the chance that the deceased was not his real father and as a result postpone celebrating the Passover on time. After all, no doubt exists about the need to perform the commandments connected with Passover. The Torah therefore had to write both the words לאמו ולאביו to tell us that a son who is a priest must defile himself for the purpose of bringing either his father or his mother to burial.

לאמו ולאביו, “but for his mother and his father’s [funeral] etc;” just as he may only defile himself for burying mother and father who had been fully alive, so this exception for other members of his closest family applies only to those who had been alive for at least thirty days. He must not defile himself on account of stillborn children, for instance. Seeing that the Torah saw fit to mention the mother before the father when discussing the rules for ordinary priests, why, when discussing the parents of the High Priest in verse eleven, does the Torah mention the father ahead of the mother? If it is forbidden for the ordinary priest to defile himself ritually at his mother’s funeral, there is no need to repeat this as there is no doubt who was one’s mother, whereas there is no certainty as to who was one’s father. The father is added therefore to tell us that notwithstanding this uncertainty, he may defile himself at his father’s funeral. In the case of the High Priest, the Torah mentions his mother last in order to tell us that in spite of our being certain the woman being buried was his mother, he is still not permitted to defile himself on her account.
לאחיו ולאחותו, “concerning his brother or his sister, etc.;” we find that according to Torat Kohanim that we might have thought that the Torah speaks of a brother and sister of the same mother; in order to show us that this is not so, the Torah adds the words: ,לבנו ולבתו, “and concerning his son and his daughter.” Just as the son and daughter are his potential heirs, so the brothers and sisters that are meant here are only those that are potentially heirs, i.e. they have the same father. The law of inheritance excludes the mother.

לאביו ולאמו, to his father or his mother;” the letter ו before the word לאמו means: “or,” instead of “and.” The same applies in לבנו ולבתו, or in ולאחיו ולאחותו. In each of these words the prefix ו means “or” instead of “and. As to the question why the word ולאביו, “or to his father,” was needed to permit the son to defile himself at his father’s funeral, seeing that the relationship is of a lower level as that of the mother, [being only presumptive as we do not know for sure that he is the father, Ed.], we might have thought that on account of this the Torah would not have allowed the son the priest to defile himself at the funeral; on the other hand if the Torah had only mentioned that the son could defile himself at his father’s funeral, we would have taken for granted that if even this was allowed, attending his mother’s funeral would certainly be allowed. However, I could have argued the reverse: if I cannot defile myself on account of my father’s funeral when he had disgraced himself and lost his status as a functioning priest, I can certainly not defile myself on account of my mother’s funeral, if my mother had lost her status as legitimately married to a priest. In light of these problems, the Torah decided to mention father and mother separately. לאמו ולאביו, “to his mother or father;” when the Torah speaks of an ordinary priest, it mentions the mother before the father, whereas when speaking of the prohibition for the High Priest to defile himself for the death of his parents, it mentions first the father and then the mother. (verse 11) The logic runs as follows: if an ordinary priest may defile himself at his mother’s funeral, seeing that we are certain that she is his kin, the Torah broadens this to also include the father, though he is by no means definitely a blood relative. When speaking of the prohibition for the High Priest to attend even his closest relative’s funeral, it mentions the father first, seeing that he is not definitely a blood relative. It continues by saying that this High Priest may not defile himself even for the sake of his mother’s funeral, although we know definitely that he is her son. ולבנו ולבתו, “and on account of his son or his daughter,” (he may defile himself) if the Torah had only written about either son or daughter, why would this not have been enough to tell us that the priest may defile himself at the funeral of any of his children, G-d forbid? Not only that, but we could have reasoned that if the priest may defile himself on account of children’s death neither of whom he was obliged to honour during their lifetime, is it not logical that he has to do the same on account of his parents whom the Torah commanded him to honour and revere? Answer: if the Torah had not spelled out both son and daughter, I might have thought that for preemies who did not survive their birth, the priest would also be permitted to defile themselves; therefore the Torah spelled out that only children who qualify for the title son or daughter, are a legitimate cause for the priest to defile himself. Another reason why the Torah had to write: לבנו ולבתו, “to defile themselves on account of his son or daughter,” is that son and daughter do not have the same relationships to their respective parents. A son is obligated to perform the commandment of honouring and revering his parents throughout his life, whereas a daughter’s obligation to do this takes second place to her honouring her husband upon marriage, as is evident that while her father could invalidate certain of her vows before marriage (depending on her age) after marriage only her husband has the right to do this. Therefore, the fact that they rank equally concerning the rights of their parents to defile themselves at their funerals had to be spelled out.

Furthermore, we are dealing here with a situation where the son's status as a priest is based only on the assumption that his father who claims to be his father is also a priest, another assumption which is itself not based on definitie evidence. In view of the fact that neither son nor father can establish a definitve claim as to their paternity and priesthood respectively, I would not have allowed the son to violate his legal status and defile himself on the basis of a חזקה that the man he knew as his father was indeed his father unless the Torah had decreed this specifically

ולאחיו ולאחותו, “and concerning his brother or his sister, in case either of them died; this too could not be derived from the Torah having written this concerning son and daughter. Neither brother nor sister was obligated to perform acts by which to honour the other. We could have assumed therefore that the family ties to one another was therefore weaker than the other relatives mentioned by the Torah which would have prohibited them defiling themselves at each other’s funeral. The Torah also had to make a distinction between a sister who is still a virgin, i.e. too young to have been married, and one who has left her father’s house already to live with her husband.

ולבנו ולבתו ולאחיו, "and for the death of his son, his daughter or his brother." Torat Kohanim comment as follows on this verse: "The Torah should have been content to mention the son and the daughter; why did the Torah also have to write that the son must defile himself for the sake of burying his father and his mother? If the Torah wrote that a father must defile himself in order to bury his son or daughter whom he is not obligated to honour, is it not logical that he certainly has to defile himself for the sake of burying his father or mother whom he is obligated to honour?" If this reasoning were correct, I would have had to conclude that the words "son or daughter" were meant to apply to children who were aborted and had never drawn a breath of life. The Torah therefore had to write the words "son and daughter" to ensure that I would not apply the קל וחומר we just described. The Torah told us that only sons and daughters who had demonstrated viability qualify for their father the priest defiling himself at their burial." Thus far Torat Kohanim. I find this difficult to understand. If it were correct, all the Torah had to write were the words לאמו ולבנו, and I would have derived this information from these two examples. The word לאביו would have been quite unnecessary. Also, according to the argument that seeing the mother is a definite blood-relation therefore I could not have concluded that the father also qualified for the son defiling himself at his grave unless the Torah had stated so specifically, we could have extrapolated this from the words "his son or his daughter." Whose father is known with certainty? Yet the Torah spelled out that the father must defile himself at the grave of a son whose identity as his son is based on an assumption, חזקה only. We cannot even argue that the identity of the father is less certain than the identtiy of either son or daughter (as far as their respective paternity is concerned) for we find that the author of Torat Kohanim used their identities as the basis for his קל וחומר to include the father in the same legislation. So we are back to the question of why the Torah had to spell out that the "son" has to defile himself at the burial of his "father?" If the only reason the Torah wrote "his father" was to teach that the commandment to defile himself applied only to children who were viable, so that the term "father" applied in the full meaning of the word, we could have derived this from the fact that the Torah wrote לאמו though this too could have been derived from קל וחומר seeing we already have the words בנו ובתו. There is no reason to say that we need both the words לאביו ולאמו together in order to exclude aborted fetuses; why would the word "father" or "mother" not be sufficient to teach us that rule? Besides, if we really needed both these words why did the author of Torat Kohanim go to the trouble to demonstrate that each word by itself was required separately? We already needed both words together to exclude the aborted infants from the regulation discussed by the Torah in our verse?

For his mother and his father. It leads with “his mother,” since his mother is not a descendant of Aharon, but [he may become impure for her] only from the aspect that she is like her husband himself, and this is a greater chiddush [novel idea]. Regarding the Kohen Godol, however, it says, “For his father and mother he shall not become impure,” it leads with “his father,” for this is the greater chiddush, since he is from the descendants of Aharon [and yet he still may not become impure]. Alternatively, this can be explained in the way of “not only this, but even this”: It is easier to hear that he should defile himself for his mother because she endured a lot of pain for him, in pregnancy, birth, and raising him, which is not so regarding the father … Furthermore, it is more certain that she is his mother than that he is his father … Additionally, a woman’s disgrace is greater than a man’s disgrace, and that is why it leads with “his mother.” This teaches us that if he has to take care of both of their bodies he is obligated to take care of his mother first.

However, another statement concerning the words לאמו ולאביו at the end of Torat Kohanim presents a problem. We read there as follows: "If the Torah had only written the word לאביו and had not also written the word לאמו I would have reasoned that if the Torah demanded that the son defile himself for the burial of his father whose identity is based merely on חזקה, an assumption, such a son most certainly would have to defile himself at the death of his mother who is his biological mother beyond any doubt! I would then have countered that the mother's status as a priest's wife is not constant since she stands to lose it on the death of her husband or through a divorce. Therefore the Torah had to write the word לאמו to also include her in the number of blood relations for whose burial the son who is a priest has to defile himself." We see that the Torah had to write the word לאמו to include a mother who had already forfeited her status as a priest's wife prior to her death! If so, what word is there left for exegetical use to exclude aborted infants from the legislation that the father who is a priest must defile himself on their account? On the other hand, if you use the word to exclude these aborted fetuses, which word is left to include that the son, the priest, must defile himself over a dead mother who had become נתחללה, lost her former status as the wife of a priest? Besides, whence do I know that the father the priest has to defile himself on account of a daughter who had lost her status as the wife of a priest? One could argue that case in either direction! One could say that seeing the son has to honour his mother regardless of her marital status, he also has to defile himself on her account when she dies; on the other hand, one could argue that the Torah had already made it plain that the fact that a woman forfeited her marital status as the wife of a priest did not affect her blood relationship to her son and therefore should have no bearing on the need of her biological son the priest to defile himself at her funeral; also that just as the son has to defile himself for his mother, so, in the event that he has a daughter he has to defile himself if she dies.

Let us examine precisely how the author of Torat Kohanim arrived at the conclusion that the son the priest must defile himself on account of a mother who had lost her status as the wife of a priest. Was this conclusion based on the extraneous word לאמו? Perhaps the word לאמו was not at all superfluous and we needed it to prove that defilement is in order seeing the mother's status was inferior as she was subject to becoming מתחללת, losing her privileges as the wife of a priest, something that cannot happen to the father except if he does something wrong himself. Similarly, the author of Torat Kohanim had been careful to point out already at the beginning of his discourse: "What distinguishes the father? The fact that he is not subject to losing his status as a priest." This meant that this consideration established the basis for a certain asymmetry in the status of the "father the priest" and the "mother the priest's wife." The remarkable thing is that even though in effect the mother died without ever losing her status as the wife of a priest, the fact that she might have done so is considered as sufficient reason to rate her priestly status as inferior to that of her husband. Following this train of thought, we are entitled to the conclusion that if the mother had indeed already been disqualified from being the wife of a priest her son would really not be allowed to defile himself at her burial. We are therefore compelled to say that the author of Torat Kohanim proceeded from the premise that mention of the word לאמו means that a priest has to defile himself for his mother regardless of whether or not she has in effect been disqualified from being the wife of a priest. Now the fact remains that if the Torah had only written the word לאביו I would have been entitled to argue that the mother is inferior in status to her husband the priest even while she enjoys her status as the wife of her husband the priest because of her potential disqualification. Now that the Torah also wrote the word לאמו the Torah made clear that even if she had become disqualified her son the priest has to defile himself on her account when she dies. You can apply the same reasoning to the word ולבתו, and on account of his daughter. By the simple expedient of mentioning the daughter the Torah included a daughter who had become disqualified as a possible wife for a priest. Her father the priest must defile himself on her account in the event she dies. The only factor which governs all this legislation is the biological relationship. Seeing a mother or daughter who do not qualify as a wife for a priest have not ceased to be called mother or daughter respectively, the legislation for the son or father to defile himself is in place. This brings us back to the question why the Torah had to write the word לאמו, seeing we could have derived the law for the mother from the word בתו?

Nonetheless, if the Torah had not written the word לאמו, I would not have concluded that the word לאביו was meant to exclude children which had been aborted before they became viable, but I would have concluded that it excluded אמו, his mother. It is far more more reasonable to exclude the mother of the priest than to search for such far-fetched exclusions as the need to defile oneself at the death of premature stillborn children. The reason I would have excluded the mother would be her status, i.e. the fact that she is constantly subject to losing her status as a priest's wife and the privileges which accrue to her thanks to that fact. We would have limited the fact that the daughter qualifies for her father defiling himself as applying to a daughter who had not actually jeopardised her status as a priest's wife, or at least as potentially a priest's wife, whereas I would have limited the exclusion of the priest's mother to a mother who had actually lost that status. A mother who had not jeopardised her status as the wife of a priest would qualify for her son the priest defiling himself at her funeral. I would have used a קל וחומר extrapolating from the word בתו to arrive at that conclusion. When discussing the status of a daughter, even one who had forfeited her status, we would have remembered that she is still called "his daughter" in the Torah regardless of whether she qualifies for marriage to a priest or not. We would then have reverted to apply that same reasoning to a daughter who had jeopardised her status by comparing her to a mother who had jeopardised her status, based on the unnecessary word לאביו. We would have reasoned that just as a mother who has jeopardised her status as the wife of a priest does not cause her son the priest to defile herself on account of her funeral, so a daughter in her condition most certainly does not confer the duty on her father the priest to defile himself on account of her death. We would have argued this in spite of the fact that the very word בתו in the Torah implies that this daughter did not jeopardise her status as a blood relative by losing her status as a woman a priest may marry. The word בתו would only commit us if I did not either have a restrictive clause or a קל וחומר to counter our reading of the text. We would therefore read the word בתו as applying only to a daughter who had not lost her status, i.e. לא נתחללה.

What emerges from all these examinations of the deeper meaning of our text is that if the Torah had not written the word לאביו which could have misled us into thinking that it was intended to exclude the son the priest defiling himself at his mother's funeral, there would indeed have been no need to write the word לאמו. I would have derived all the הלכות I needed from the words בנו ובתו, his son or his daughter as mentioned earlier. If the Torah had not written the word לאמו from which the error concerning excluding the father whose status is based only on חזקה would have resulted, there would have been no need to write the word לאביו. If so, you would ask why does the Torah not simply write only לאביו, leaving out the word לאמו altogether? In order to forestall this question Torat Kohanim explained that the word was intended to exclude premature stillborn infants. Seeing that this is so there is no more room to argue that the word לאמו or לאביו should have been written by itself. The moment the Torah would write only one of these two words I would arrive at an erroneous conclusion and demolish the whole pyramid we have built thus far. The Torah was therefore very clever in writing exactly what it did. Torat Kohanim was conscious of this and informed us of a possible error we could make if the Torah had not written precisely the words we find in our text.

For all the near-of-kin for whom the Kohen¹ Glos. defiles himself, viz., his father, mother, son, daughter, [paternal] brother, paternal virgin sister and wife, — one is dutibound to observe mourning rites.¹⁹M.K. 20b. To these they added one's maternal brother and one's maternal sister whether a virgin or married, and one's paternal married sister, — for whom one is dutibound to observe mourning rites, although a Kohen¹ Glos. does not defile himself for them.²⁰Ibid. And even as he observes mourning rites for his wife, so too, does she observe mourning rites for him.²¹The reason being that since a mourner observes mourning rites for all near-of-kin for whom a Kohen defiles himself, it follows that just as a woman defiles herself for her husband, she also observes mourning rites for him — B.Yos. Cf. Mishna Yeb. IV, 10 (41a) and infra par. 6. [This applies] only to one's lawful married wife, but for one's unlawful or betrothed [wife] one does not [observe mourning rites].²² supra § 373, 4 for whom a Kohen defiles himself, and v. Yeb. 29b regarding a betrothed wife with respect to mourning rites. For one's son, daughter, brother or sister, even if they are illegitimate, he observes mourning, save [in the case of] his son, daughter, brother or sister who are [the issue] of a slave or a heathen, for whom one does not observe mourning rites.²³Mishna Yeb. II, 5 (22a). If one quarreled with his wife and decided to divorce her, and then immediately following the dispute, she died, the husband is not dutibound to mourn for her — R. A. Eger on the authority of MaHaRShaL. Nowadays, however, since one cannot divorce his wife against her will, but must obtain her consent, this does not apply — P.Tesh. (to E.H. § 90 n. 8) a.o. Hence, if the husband is a Kohen, he defiles himself and observes mourning rites for her. If she was divorced on a condition and subsequently the husband died, she is not dutibound to observe mourning rites for him. However, if she desires to adopt a stringency, she is permitted to weep over him and to follow his bier — E.H. § 145, 9, Gloss.