Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses the log of oil offered by the metzora (a log is a Biblical measure approximately equal to six eggs; see Bartenura, Mishnah Eduyos 1:2). This was one of the eight subsidies of sacred foods given to the kohanim.

Continuing the theme from yesterday’s daf and blogpost zavachim 42, the Maaseh Rokeach (Seder Moed, Yoma) explains that the eight sprinklings of blood in the Holy of Holies from the kohen gadol’s bull (Vayikra 16) atone for any instance in which kohanim may have inadvertently eaten from these eight kinds of holy foods while impure.

The Maaseh Rokeach asks: If this atonement concerns the kohanim who eat these foods, why does the congregation’s goat also have eight sprinklings of blood in the Holy of Holies? The Yisraelim could not have eaten from these foods at all!

One might suggest this is to atone in case a non-kohen somehow partook, yet the Maaseh Rokeach finds that unlikely, since there are infinite inadvertent sins, and this rite seems to address one particular kind, which should be prevalent to a degree. Instead, he offers an intriguing insight:

There is an idea that the Israelites achieve a measure of atonement through the cohanim’s consumption of the holy foods (Yoma 90a). Thus, if the cohanim eat improperly, the Yisraelim’s atonement is disrupted, and the whole congregation requires rectification regarding these sacred foods.

This conveys a profound truth: the cohanim and Yisraelim are bound together in their service. The distinctions of role and holiness do not divide them but interconnect them. Each depends on the other’s faithfulness.

Instead of the hollow modern slogan “No one is above the law,” often used sanctimoniously by those who trample this principle the most, we might say in our own sacred tongue: “Everyone is together under the law.”