MARRIAGE OF A COHEN TO A DIVORCEE Israel Bettan

QUESTION: There is a problem which I am trying to help a young couple solve. The young woman is a divorcee; the boy is a kohen. The man's father objects to the marriage. I wonder: Is there any argument, based on Jewish law, which I can use with the father to keep him from making his son's life miserable because of this marriage?

ANSWER: The status of the modern koken has long been questioned by leading authorities in Jewish law. As early as the 14th century, Isaac ben Sheshet differentiated between the ancient priest and the modern kohen in no uncertain terms. He contended that the kohen of his time, lacking any documentary evidence of his rightful claim to the priestly title, owed his special privileges and obligations, not to the express mandate of the law, but rather to the force of custom or common usage:“Kol sheken kohanim shebedorenu she-ein lahem ketav hayachas ela mipenei chezkatan nahagu hayom likro rishon batorah. Kohen afilu am ha-arets lifnei chacham gadol shebeYisra­el”(Sefer Bar Sheshet, Responsum 94, Lemberg, 1805).

Solomon Luria , the well-known 16th century authority, states it categorically that because of the frequent persecutions and expulsions of the Jews , the original priestly families, in most instances, failed to preserve the purity of their descent:"Uva-avonoteinu, merov arichut hagalut, gezerot vegerushim, nitbalbelu. Vehalevai shelo yehe nitbalhel zera kodesh bechol, aval zera kohanim uleviyim karov levadai shenitbalbelu, ve-im lo kulo, harov nitbalbel”(Yam Shel Shelomo, BK, ch. 5, sec. 35).

Likewise, the author of the Magen Avraham assumes the impurity of the modern kohen’s descent when he seeks to account for the doubtful status accorded him in the law:“She-ein machazikin oto kechohen vadai dedilema nitchalela achat me-imotav”(Magen Avraham, Orakh Hayim, Hil. Pesah , sec. 457).

Jacob Emden was so impressed with the questionable character of the kohen's claims that, while hesitating to invoke the