“My kingdom for a dry cleaner,” or Mrs. Cohen’s complaint

Nu, you think I don’t know what you read in synagogue last week? They took some blood from the consecration sacrifice and some olive oil and sprinkled it on Aharon's and the boys' priestly garments (Parshat Tetzaveh, Exodus, chapter 29, verse 21). And just when I’d almost forgotten about that, they had to go and mention that anointing oil again this week, even listing all the fancy-schmancy spices that had to be mixed with the oil to make it so special. (Parshat Ki Tisa, Exodus, chapter 30, verse 30).

Guess who got to clean up that mess?

Every day, Aharon and the boys would come home from the Ohel Moed/Tent of Meeting-with-God with their clothes covered with blood from the animal sacrifices. And I’d have to spend hours scrubbing their clothes with salt. No wonder you later-day rabbinic-law followers use salt for drawing blood out of meat and making it kosher—it really does work. But not well enough that I’d want to see any more generations put through what I and the wives of other Cohanim/Priests of the animal-sacrifice days went through.

N’shei Cohanim, Wifes of Men of the Priestly Clan, stand up for your rights! You tell those later-day zealots to give up any thoughts of a literal return to animal sacrifices, or you’ll make them clean the blood off the priestly clothes! Humph!