This week's parsha deals almost exclusively with the Cohanim (the priests):their selection, their vestments, and the inauguration service by which they and their offspring become confirmed for all time as the special ministers of G-d.

Anybody who has seen the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark will recognise that the Cohanim wore very extravagent and elaborate clothing. Yet even before we are told who or what exactly the Cohanim are, the Torah chooses to explain the commandment given to the Cohanim of the lighting of the Menorah. Why does the Torah bring the first two instructions of this week's Sedra (namely the lighting of the Menorah and the appointment of the Cohanim) together here, both seemingly out of their proper chronological sequence?

A medieval Italian commentator, Rabbi Menachem Ricanti helps us to understand this order. He contrasts the two opposite personages in the Torah; the Cohen and the Leper. The Cohen lives at the very heart of the community, with the Tabernacle and the leper is temporarily banished to solitary exile outside of the community. The Cohen is not allowed to perform his sacred service if he has suffered various physical blemishes, whereas the leper's whole body has undergone a tragic mutation. Yet, ultimately their paths cross in a most significant manner. When the leper finally returns to the camp in order to be pronounced clean of his disease, the final stages of the process is administered by the Cohen. The Cohen annoints the leper with oil. By means of the oil the Cohen has purified the leper, the social outcast. He has given him new life and enabled him to return to being an active member of the Jewish community. This comparison may shed light on our problem of why the commandment of lighting the Menorah is given to the Cohanim even before we are introduced to them, and why these two sections are juxtaposed. We can learn from this that the role of the Cohen vis-a-vis the Jewish community can only be understood in relation to the lighting of the menorah. Only after they understand their role as producers of light can they be inducted. By means of the oil with which the Menorah is lit, the Cohen brings forth light to dispel the darkness of the Tabernacle. Similarly with the leper, by means of the oil, the Cohen brings the leper to a new state of purity. The Jewish people had to appreciate that the Cohen's first and foremost responsibility was to foster the creation of states of light, and to dispel 'darkness' wherever he encountered it. Parshat Tetzaveh introduces us to the Cohen, the light-giving source, the source of communal life of the Jewish people.