The Gemara (Zevachim 100a; see also Moed Katan 23a) and its commentators discuss various details of the following account, and some aspects are subject to interpretation. What follows is one possible dramatized reconstruction of the events.
The rabbi was softly reciting Tehillim at a well-attended funeral. The wife of a great sage had passed away, a tragedy made all the more painful by the young children she left behind. Yet there was something strikingly unusual about this levaya.
The nifteres lay beneath a small tent, surrounded by only a handful of people. Everyone else stood at a distance. Was it possible that the thousands in attendance were all kohanim? Of course not. That day was the fourteenth of Nissan. All those present were obligated to offer the Korban Pesach that very afternoon and therefore could not become tamei. Only the members of the Chevra Kadisha had no choice but to incur tumah; they would bring their Korban Pesach a month later, on Pesach Sheini.
Still, there was something profoundly auspicious about the timing. Hashem had decreed that her funeral take place on that very day, allowing throngs of Jews, who had made the pilgrimage to Yerushalayim to bring the Korban Pesach, to attend and pay their respects, even if only from afar.
Suddenly, a commotion broke out. Who would dare disrupt the levaya of such a revered rebbetzin? A group of men were pushing a screaming individual forward.
“No!” he pleaded. “I am a kohen! I am not permitted to go under the tent!”
They ignored him.
“Please,” he begged, “I must bring the Korban Pesach today!”
His cries were to no avail. They continued pushing him forward.
Then the crowd caught sight of the man and gasped. The men pushed him beneath the ohel, and one of them said, “Show some respect to your wife!”
The root of the disturbance had begun hours earlier.
The great scholar Yosef HaKohen sat with his friends, crushed by grief. His wife had just passed away, and he was now an onen, one whose close relative has died and who is therefore prohibited from certain religious acts.
“With a broken heart,” he said quietly, “I will not be able to enter the ohel with my wife at the levaya. I am a kohen. The Chevra Kadisha will attend to the burial.”
His friends looked at him in astonishment.
“Yosef,” one of them said, “didn’t Chazal teach that burying one’s wife is comparable to burying a meis mitzvah, a person who has no one else to care for them? A meis mitzvah obligates everyone, even a Kohen Gadol. You are permitted, indeed obligated, to become tamei and attend to her burial.”
Yosef HaKohen shook his head.
“That statement, that a wife is like a meis mitzvah, was not meant literally,” he replied.
Another friend pressed him.
“Even if you are not obligated, surely you are at least permitted to stand beneath the same tent as the nifteres and attend the funeral properly. She is at the very least a close relative.”
“No,” Yosef answered firmly. “Today is the fourteenth of Nissan. I am obligated to bring the Korban Pesach this afternoon, as every Jew in Klal Yisrael is. I may not become tamei.”
One of them countered, “But you cannot bring the Korban Pesach. It is still morning, and you are an onen for the entire day. An onen is prohibited from offering any korbanos. Had your wife passed away after midday, your obligation in the Korban Pesach would already have taken effect before the prohibitions of aninus. But now, since you became an onen in the morning, you may not bring any korbanos today.”
Yosef replied without hesitation.
“I do not accept that ruling. I maintain that an onen is permitted to bring the Korban Pesach.”
His friends stepped aside and spoke among themselves in hushed tones.
“Yosef HaKohen is a towering gadol,” one of them said. “If he acts on this view, many will assume the halacha follows him.”
“But it does not,” another insisted. “The halacha is clear: an onen may not bring the Korban Pesach or any other korban.”
“So what do we do?” a third asked. “How can we prevent him from bringing it?”
After a moment, one of them said quietly, “We must make him tamei.”
They hesitated.
“Are we even permitted to do such a thing?”
“Yes,” came the reply. “Rabbi Akiva recently taught that whenever a Kohen is permitted to become tamei in order to attend the levaya of a close relative, it is a mitzvah for him to do so. Tosafos explains that this extends so far that, where necessary, we may even compel him to fulfill that mitzvah.”
The decision was made.
And so, at the levaya of his own wife, Yosef HaKohen was forcibly brought beneath the ohel, against his will. Tumah was imposed upon him, and with it the certainty that he would bring the Korban Pesach not that day, but a month later, on Pesach Sheini.
At the Beis HaChaim, Yosef HaKohen encountered his wife’s sister. Seeing the young children left bereft of their mother and fearing for their future, he spoke to her with urgency and compassion. For the sake of the orphans, he asked that she agree to marry him and take responsibility for them. She consented immediately.
The Gemara in Moed Katan (23a) relates that although this proposal took place on that very day, while Yosef HaKohen was still an onen, he acted with complete propriety. The Rishonim explain that the arrangement was made solely to ensure the children’s welfare; the actual chuppah was delayed until the appropriate time, after the periods of aninus and aveilus had passed. In this way, Yosef HaKohen demonstrated profound compassion, for even in the moment of his most significant personal loss, his thoughts were directed toward his children’s needs.
In this episode, Chazal reveal the true measure of greatness. Every step Yosef HaKohen took, whether resisted or compelled, was governed by an uncompromising loyalty to the will of Hashem. And yet, that same fidelity to halacha did not dull his sensitivity; it sharpened it. The very Torah that instilled ritual restraint also motivated him to show compassion and act quickly for his orphaned children, illustrating that genuine reverence for Hashem is intrinsically linked with empathy.
Maggid shiur and Rebbe at Yeshiva Ateres Shimon in Far Rockaway. He leads the Daf Yomi chaburah at Eitz Chayim of Dogwood Park in West Hempstead, and writes “Delving into the Daf” each week for The Jewish Home.
