Parshas Emor discusses the spiritual purity requirements for Kohanim, particularly their prohibition against contact with the dead. However, exceptions are made for close relatives, allowing Kohanim to mourn and be near the deceased.

The Sefer Hachinuch (Mitzva 263) emphasizes the importance of family relationships. He explains that because our relationship with our relatives is generally so close, and it would be difficult for the Kohen to not be allowed to be in close proximity to his relative as he is mourning his loss, therefore the Torah permitted it.

The gemara (Zevachim 100a) says that the Kohen is not only allowed to become impure from being around the dead body of his relative, he is actually responsible to be around the dead body despite the fact that it will make him impure.

The Rambam explains, that there is a mitzva in the Torah to mourn for the loss of a relative (at least on day 1), and being in close vicinity to the body is part of mourning, and therefore even a Kohen is responsible to allow himself to become impure as he mourns the loss of his relative.

We are all saddened by the loss of a close relative, however when they are alive, we don’t always focus on pursuing the relationship in a meaningful way.

From the beginning of time we have seen that the complications within our family relationships are often a lot deeper, and despite the fact that we love our family we often have a hard time getting along with them. The Maharal says that the reason that the Torah teaches us about the story of Kayin and Hevel in the beginning of the Torah was to teach us the lesson that it is difficult to get along with others, and to get along with others we need to work on it.

The Yerushalmi explains that one of the keys to having a productive relationship is to feel like a team. The gemara gives an analogy, that if someone’s right hand would hurt his left hand, it would be silly for his left hand to hurt his right hand. We would be hurting ourselves! So too, we should try to feel the same way about each other, we should care about each other so much that we would feel like we were hurting ourselves if we would hurt each other.

This is the way that we should try to feel about all of our friend’s needs. We should try to care about each other in a manner where we would be as happy for each other to have their needs met as we are for our own.

Without working on ourselves, our middos will generally develop in a manner where we see ourselves as being separate from others and we will see our personal needs and desires as a priority over the needs and desires of others.

This will be true about our family as well. Instead of seeing ourselves as one unit, we think of ourselves and our needs as being separate and different, we see our success as important and our family’s success as being secondary. We often feel like separate and competing units. We have excuses for why we think of our family in that manner. We have different personalities, different hobbies, and different religious attitudes. We also often live in different places and we have busy lives. As a result, if we don’t purposefully focus on the true and real connection that we do have with each other we can fall into the trap of feeling different and distant.

Realistically over time there will be situations that come up with our family where people’s feelings will be hurt. We are all very sensitive, especially about that which our family and friends say to us or about us. As a result of those painful experiences we often distance ourselves from the other person and we put up a wall that separates us from them for weeks, months, decades, or forever. Whatever good that existed in the relationship in the past and whatever positives that could exist in the future are held back by the wall that we create between us!!!

The Torah teaches us even to view the descendants of Esav as our brothers. Apparently, it’s possible to feel a unity even with those who seem to be so distant! Surely, with those who we share a rich and meaningful history with, and those who we share blood and experiences with, we have the ability and the responsibility to feel connected to. Their success is our success, their pain is our pain, and their mission is our mission.

It's a long road to get to the place where we can fully feel this way, but if we want to, we will get much closer to that goal. Let’s commit ourselves to working toward that goal , especially with our family, and for all of the Jewish people as well.