Emor translates to “speak.” It begins with Leviticus (Vayikra) 21:1:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֱמֹ֥ר אֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִ֖ים בְּנֵ֣י אַהֲרֹ֑ן
יהוה said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron
So, who are the Kohanim? The word Kohen derives from a root common to the Central Semitic languages and is used to refer to all priests, Jewish or pagan.1 The first person in the Torah referred to as a priest is in Genesis 14:18
וּמַלְכִּי־צֶ֙דֶק֙ מֶ֣לֶךְ שָׁלֵ֔ם הוֹצִ֖יא לֶ֣חֶם וָיָ֑יִן וְה֥וּא כֹהֵ֖ן לְאֵ֥ל עֶלְיֽוֹן׃
And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High
Jewish priests are first mentioned in Exodus 19:6
וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ-לִי מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִי,
And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests
In Exodus 13, after the ten plagues and before the sea of reeds, יהוה tells Moses, “Consecrate to Me every male first-born; human and beast, the first [male] issue of every womb among the Israelites is Mine.” The sages interpreted this to mean the first-born males were set aside to be priests.
In Numbers 3, shortly after the Levites joined Moses in the incident of the Golden Calf, יהוה said “I hereby take the Levites from among the Israelites in place of all the male first-born: the Levites shall be Mine.” In Deuteronomy 10:8-11, “the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant, and to stand before the LORD as his ministers, and to pronounce blessings in his name.” However, the Levites are not referred to as kohanim.
Instead, back in Exodus 28, יהוה says, “You shall bring forward your brother Aaron, with his sons, from among the Israelites, to serve Me as priests.”
Halachically speaking, the kohanim are required to be of direct patrilineal descent from Aaron.2 While there is evidence from Josephus and rabbinic sources that this tradition existed by the end of the Second Temple, a historical-critical reading of the biblical text suggests that the origin of the priesthood is much more complex, and that for much if not all of the First Temple period, kohen was not synonymous with "Aaronide". Rather, this traditional identity seems to have been adopted sometime around the second temple period.
Instead, the “presumption of priestly descent”3 states that a Jewish man is a kohen based not on genealogical records but rather by observation of his priestly behavior as recognized by his peers and community. Once the presumption was made, Maimonides considered it to be in force unless a valid objection to his lineage is made before a Beit Din.
Rabbi Luria (of Lurianic Kabbalah) tells the story of Hai Gaon, who would travel to Jerusalem for Sukkot and circle the Temple Mount with hundreds of kohanim in the company of Elijah the Prophet. One year, a student noticed him laughing during the procession. Asked why, Hai Gaon responded that Elijah revealed to him that, of the hundreds of kohanim that accompanied him in a haughty way, none were legitimate kohanim, except for one kohen who proceeded humbly.
Since men can only inherit a Y chromosome from their father, in 1997 Karl Skorecki and collaborators from Haifa, Israel, hypothesised that sons of Aaron would share similar markers, or haplotypes. In their study, "Y chromosomes of Jewish priests," published in the journal Nature4, they reported 48% of Ashkenazi Kohens and 58% of Sephardic Kohens had the J1 Cohen Modal Haplotype, compared to 5% in the general Jewish population. This indicated a common ancestor from before the destruction of the Second Temple and the Jewish diaspora.
However, further research – including by the original authors – have not only challenged the original conclusions, but shown the opposite: The genealogical record "refutes the idea of a single founder for Jewish Cohanim who lived in Biblical times.”5
Today, in Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, kohanim retain a lesser though distinct status, including certain honors and restrictions. When the Torah reading is performed in synagogue, a kohen (if one is present) is called for the first aliyah and a Levite for the second6. The kohanim also deliver the priestly blessing during the repetition of the Amidah. Orthodox rabbis will not perform a marriage between a kohen and a divorced woman7, and kohanim may avoid corpses except for immediate family members. Kohen only refers to men although some Conservative synagogues will allow a “bat kohen” to take the first aliyah and perform the priestly blessing8.
Reform Judaism does not afford any special status or recognition to kohanim.
Given all the above, we might expect kohanim to be somewhat rare. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Cohen is the most common surname in Israel9. (The next most common is Levy.)
1. See Genesis 14:18, 41:45,50, 46:20, 47:22,26; Exodus 2:16, 3:1,18:1; et al.
2. Mark Leuchter (2021). "How All Kohanim Became Sons of Aaron". TheTorah.com
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_priestly_descent
4. https://www.nature.com/articles/385032a0
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron
6. https://jewishaction.com/religion/jewish-law/whats-truth-giving-levi-first-aliyah/
7. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/468267/jewish/Kohen-Marriages.htm
8. http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/teshuvot/docs/19912000/rabinowitz_women.pdf
9. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), 2019
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