Re: kohen and levi

[Yehuda & Rebecca Poch <butrfly...>]

At 08:41 04/02/2000 +0100, Jerzy Matysiakiewicz wrote:
>Hi
>
>| - The father must not be a kohen or a levi.
>| - The mother must not come from a kohen or levi
>family.
>
>Excuze my goyish curiosity, but I.m not familiar with
>plenty of matters /but I try/.
>What's wrong or special with cohens and levys??

The point is that nothing is wrong with them.  THe reason we make a pidyon
haben (redemption of the son) is that when the JEws were taken out of
Egypt, every first born Egyptian was killed (the last of the Ten Plagues).
Therefore, every first-born Jewish child is set aside for service to G-d,
meaning service in the Temple.
However, the Cohanim (plural of Cohen) and levi'im (plural of Levy) both
come from the tribe of Levy (third son of Jacob).  This tribe, as a whole,
was selected to conduct the services in the Temple.  As such, the first
borns of the Jewish nation were no longer needed.  The number of first
borns and the number of men in the Tribe of Levy were more or less equal,
so there was a trade-off.
Now, since the kohanim and levi'im are selected for this service anyway,
there is no need to redeem them.  It's not that there's something wrong
with them, it's that they are of the higher (priestly) tribe, and therefore
do not need the redemption.

Hope this helps.
Yehuda
 
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