Parashat Emor deals with the laws regarding priesthood. The priests were in charge of the daily services in the Sanctuary –in the desert- and then in the Temple –in Jerusalem.

We can not fully understand why sacrifices were important at all, and it is difficult for us to deal with all the procedures and the details of the sacrifices and the cult in the Temple. However, we can’t ignore the fact that that sacrifices and the priesthood institution played a main role in Jewish texts and Jewish history.

It is under the light of the importance of the priesthood institution that we need to read the first verses of Parashat Emor:

The daughters of the Kohanim, also need to keep themselves to a higher standard of behavior. By desecrating themselves they also desecrated their father’s honor and position. According to RaSHI, people will say: "Accursed is the one who gave birth to her; accursed is the one who raised her" (RaSHi to Leviticus 21:8.) Again, the eyes of the congregation are upon the daughters of the Kohanim because their parent’s special position. Then we read:

When we read these verses, it seems to us that the Torah is very cruel with the Kohanim and especially with the Kohan Gadol. Where is there place for his own feelings? Why does the Torah limit his choice of a wife? Isn’t love important at all? Why do his family, his daughter and even his wife "suffer" from his position?

The ritual laws in the Torah are very complicated ones and it is difficult for us to understand –close to the end of the second millennium- rituals, practices and traditions whose intention was to bring holiness to the Kohen Gadol and to the entire people.

However, this portion can help us to understand what a position of leadership requires.

Leaders have restrictions in their own life. Like the Kohanim in the past, the more the responsibility, the more the requirements. Leaders always have a limited freedom of movement because their position makes them be the centre of attention. People talk about leaders, people criticize leaders, and people have opinion about leaders. It doesn’t matter for this analysis if the leader is Moses, The Kohan Gadol, or the Rabbi and the president of Beth Israel. Whoever accepts the responsibility and the privilege of the position needs to be ready to accept what this responsibility and this privilege carry with them.

And whoever shares the life of a leader, by choice –like his wife or her husband- or by compulsion –like his or her children, shares the honor, the privilege and the glory of the position. But also, whoever shares the life of a leader, shares also the responsibility, the lack of privacy, the critics and the bitterness that each position of leadership carries with it.

A colleague of mine, who is now serving as a Rabbi in Bolivia, told me once: my daughter is like the Mezuzah we have in the main entrance of the Synagogue, everybody touches and kisses her.

Leaders and their families have a different kind of privacy than the rest of the people. Whatever they do or they don’t do is matter of opinion. What they eat, how they dress, what they say, where they go and how much they spend.

For leaders, religious leaders or lay leaders, to try to change this fact is a sterile fight. Once a leader accepts the privileges that leadership carries with it, he needs also to assume the responsibility and weight of his position. And because everybody will talk about what a leader and his family eat, how they dress, what they do and say, there is nothing to do but keep a higher standard in all of what a leader and his or her family do.

Like the priests, prophets and kings in the past, leaders should assume responsibility for their own acts and –I am sorry to say that- for their family’s acts.

As the Sages say, "leadership is not power and dominance; it is servitude."

I believe that leaders are called to assume a position of leadership. That is the meaning of the word vocation, to be called. Some great people through history were called by God Himself, others by the voice of their conscience. However, what makes a person a leader is not the call itself, but the willingness to accept the challenge.

Next Sunday evening the Beth Israel Synagogue will elect new officers, trustees and directors, who will lead for the next two years the destiny of our congregation.

May God bless them with wisdom, patience, strength and peace.

Shabbat Shalom!