In discussing birkat kohanim, the most obvious issue to raise, at least in the context of these sheets, is why Rambam includes it among those sixty that apply to all Jews everywhere. Since the obligation actually only rests upon male priests, its relevance to this list seems at least questionable. We might think that, in parallel to the priestly obligation to bless their brethren, the rest of us also bear a responsibility to hear that blessing, but that is not in fact the case.

Reviewing several halakhot, some of which we might be misled into emphasizing as central and some whose centrality we might overlook, will help us answer this question. The kohen’s washing his hands just before the blessing, for example, would seem to be essential to the ceremony. Before we set that record straight, let us just note that the hands must be washed until the perek, the point where the hand connects to the arm; I mention that because I have seen many kohanim, here and in Israel, who wash considerably less of their hands. Returning to the question of whether that washing needs to be in close proximity to the blessing, we can mention authorities who dismiss the need for any sort of washing if the kohen had washed his hands upon arising in the morning and been careful with them since. Our deference to those opinions, in fact, explains why kohanim do not recite a berakhah for this washing.

An incident that occurred on Yom Kippur this year highlights another aspect of birkat kohanim that we might think of as central but actually is not. As the kohanim were about to ascend for birkat kohanim during musaf, one kohen approached me and said, "You know, many kohanim think that on Yom Kippur one is allowed to recite birkat kohanim with shoes on, since they are not leather," and asked me to warn the kohanim that this is not so. Not willing to make a general announcement, especially since I did not know whether he was right, I simply told one kohen, whose respect for halakhah I trusted, and he took off his shoes.

Unfortunately (for my self-confidence, at the very least), the kohen who approached me was incorrect. Kohanim take off their shoes for birkat kohanim only because of a Rabbinic worry that if they were wearing shoes with laces, their laces might become untied, and, in retying them, the kohen might neglect to fulfill his Torah obligation to join in blessing the Jewish people. Shoes that do not have laces, therefore, should be permissible. We take off leather shoes even if they do not have laces, only because they look too similar to laced shoes. On Yom Kippur, therefore, those kohanim whose footwear lacks laces indeed do not need to remove them; kohanim wearing lace-up footwear, however, still do. Most importantly, though, none of these issues go to the crux of the mitsvah, since they all stem from a Rabbinic ordinance geared towards preventing a kohen’s inadvertently failing to fulfill his obligation.

Somewhat more directly relevant to our issue is the question of the kinds of disfigurements a kohen might have and still be allowed to recite birkat kohanim. For ordinary Temple service, many mumin disqualify the kohen from active service, but for birkat kohanim we are only worried about disfigurements that will distract the people listening from focusing on the berakhah. As a result, a kohen who is dash be-iro, the members of his city know him and are familiar with his particular abnormality, are allowed to recite birkat kohanim. That rule brings to our attention the need for focus, so much so that we will prevent an obligated person from fulfilling his obligation to bless others if it will jeopardize the focus of the listeners (who, after all, are not obligated by the Torah).

Even more relevant, and (I think) less well known, the Shulhan Arukh rules (Orah Hayyim, 128;8) that any kohen who had not gotten up from his place at Retsei, to go to the front of the shul, should not go up after that point. That means, for example, that if a kohen, for whatever reason, got into the shul after the hazzan had passed Retsei, he could no longer go up to join the kohanim for that day’s blessing. That halakhah suggests a connection between the hazzan’s recitation of Retsei and the kohanim’s blessing.

Finally, our only including birkat kohanim in our morning prayers—Shaharit and Mussaf—is misleading, since that was actually only a worry about an inebriated kohen participating in the blessing. Since people generally do not eat before the morning prayers, that worry receded significantly. On fast days, where the worry also diminishes, we also have birkat kohanim in the afternoon, at either Minhah or Neilah.

Even only these three facts of birkat kohanim—that it requires focus by both the kohanim and the audience, is connected to Retsei, and applies in theory to all prayer—allow us to offer a suggestion as to why Rambam included it in our list. The need for focus suggests that the kohanim are not only beseeching God to bless the people in front of them, but are also making the people aware that God is blessing them. Retsei is in some sense a summing up of our prayers to God, a final request that God accept our service, expressed in the prayers already offered. Making that the moment when the kohanim start going up to the dukhan means that they are responding to the hazzan’s call for God to hear our prayers. As God’s representatives, they are answering our prayer, literally, by telling us that God intends to bless us. That view, in turn, tells us why it should be true of all of our prayers, since we need that reassurance of God’s positive response towards us each time we pray. The mitsvah may reside with the kohanim, then, but it serves to make prayer—a daily obligation for Rambam—a two-way street, in which we call out to our Lord, and He, through His agents the kohanim, responds. Shabbat Shalom.