The Gemara tells a story about three kohanim who got a little piece of the lechem hapanim to eat. Each made a different comment about it. One said to them, “I got a piece the size of a bean.” One said, “I got a piece the size of an olive.” And one said, “I got a piece the size of a lizard tail.”
They checked into the status of the last one and found that he was invalid to serve as a kohen.
This last kohen had a pretty strange way of describing the piece of bread he got. He said it was about the size of a lizard tail. What in the world did he mean by that? Usually, a lizard tail is an expression used to describe something that quivers. But that doesn’t seem to fit here. And if the kohen was trying to say that his piece was really small, then instead of talking about a lizard, he should have compared it to a chomet, which has the smallest size among the sheratzim.
Why a lizard tail, of all things?
To grasp the point, first let’s talk about eating kodoshim. There are certain types of korbanos that the kohanim would partake of. And they would thereby fulfill the mitzvah of eating kodoshim. Now, the standard amount of food a person needs to eat when performing a mitzvah is the size of a kezayis. When we eat matzah on Pesach, we need to eat a kezayis. If a Jew eats less than a kezayis of matzah on Seder night, he has not fulfilled his mitzvah.
But in Beis Hamikdash, the kohanim would sometimes receive a really small piece of kodoshim to eat. They would get the size of a bean. So what kind of a mitzvah is that? It’s less than a kezayis!
Eating kodoshim is special. Most of the time, when you have a mitzvah to eat something, the mitzvah is simply for you to eat it. But with kodoshim, there is an additional aspect. The kodoshim need to be eaten. So if a kohen eats a little piece, even the size of a bean, he is still helping the kodoshim to get eaten up, and that itself is a mitzvah.
So when the third kohen commented that he got a piece the size of a lizard tail, he was actually saying something pretty profound.
When a lizard’s tail is cut off, it keeps on quivering, even though it has lost its connection to its life-source. It still has a few sparks of life in it, and that enables it to display signs of life, even though it is cut off from its source.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the true Source of life. So when a kohen eats less than a kezayis, he doesn’t have a mitzvah that connects him to the Source of life. All he has is the fact that he helped the object get eaten up. As far as the eater is concerned, that’s not much. It’s like a few sparks.
The kohen who compared his portion to a lizard tail was putting it down. He was saying that it has about as much life as a lizard’s tail, as far as he is concerned.
But wait a minute, for whom does a kohen perform his service in Beis Hamikdash? Is it for himself, so he will have mitzvos? No. the avodah is for Hashem. It is called tzorech Gavoah. It’s not so that the person who is zocheh to perform it will have more mitzvos to his name.
This kohen should not have complained so much. He should not have been thinking about the mitzvah he wanted to have; he should have been thinking that the kodoshim got eaten up, which is Hashem’s Will, and this constitutes a full avodah.
That’s why they checked into his status as a kohen, and it turned out that he was actually invalid. He had a pesul. Since he had such a disrespectful attitude toward avodas Beis Hamikdash, they suspected that he might not even belong there in the first place. He didn’t care very much about Hashem’s kodoshim. He wasn’t satisfied that they got eaten up like they are supposed to. He just wanted to get his own mitzvah and that’s all. He was annoyed that he didn’t receive a kezayis and therefore described the object of avodah as something basically dead. A lizard’s tail. And a lizard is a sheretz, which is even more insulting to the kodoshim. So they smelled a skunk, and that’s what he was found to be.
There were actually three kohanim there. The first said he got the size of a bean, the second said the size of a kezayis, and the third said the size of a lizard tail. But in fact, they all got the same size. When the second said it was the size of a kezayis, he meant that in his eyes, it is as important as something with the requisite amount of a kezayis.
But what did he mean? It’s not a kezayis and he doesn’t get a mitzvah unless he eats a kezayis!
Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the Heart of a Jewish person. In the deepest essence of a Jew’s soul, there is something of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So if Hakadosh Baruch Hu has His requisite amount, then I, too, have my requisite amount. This is a wonderful way to feel about it.
The first kohen was not on this lofty level so he said he got the size of a bean. He saw himself as having received something pretty small, but it can combine with all the other pieces for the honor of Heaven. The third fellow, who couldn’t care less about the honor of Heaven, was found not to be a valid kohen at all.
