Our Mishnah in Bechoros continues to list additional anomalies that prevent a kohen from performing the service lechatchilah:
"Sefaso ha'elyonah odefes al hatachtonah, vetachtonah odefes al ha'elyonah" - his upper lip protrudes much beyond the lower lip, or the lower lip protrudes much beyond the upper one. This is not a situation where the jawbones themselves are completely deformed, as that is already considered a blemish from the previous chapter; here we are talking about a grade three overbite or underbite, where one lip appears to overlap the other somewhat. This abnormal appearance prohibits him from performing the service lechatchilah, since it is a blemish and defect like all the other blemishes, and he is not equal among the descendants of Aharon - his appearance is not like the appearance of the other kohanim.
"Veshenitlu shinav" - he is missing teeth, and the wording of the Mishnah is: "Pasul mipnei maris ha'ayin". His appearance is not pleasant, and therefore he does not perform the service.
Three categories of disqualification:
Blemishes in the list from the previous chapter: his service is invalid even bedieved.
Where his appearance is not like other kohanim: this too is a Torah law, but bedieved his service is valid.
"Mipnei maris ha'ayin" (such as missing teeth): this is fundamentally a rabbinic matter. His service is certainly valid bedieved, but the Sages said that he should not perform it because of his appearance.
"Maris ha'ayin" here, as we saw earlier with eyebrows and eyelashes, is not used in the usual sense of the concept, but rather in its literal sense: how the thing looks to the eye. Onlookers will say, "This person is not pleasant looking, his appearance is strange", and therefore he should not perform the service.
Tosafos explains that this does not refer to the loss of only one tooth - everyone is missing a tooth, and there is no substance to that - but rather to the loss of many teeth; however, exactly how many teeth is not clear.
A question arose in the previous chapter: missing teeth was already listed as a blemish in an animal, and according to the first line in our chapter - anything that is invalid in an animal is invalid in a person - it should have carried over here as well. One possible answer: a person does not open his mouth the way an animal opens its mouth, and one does not see inside it to the same extent. This presumably refers to the back teeth and not the actual front ones; the loss of the four wisdom teeth, for example, is not noticeable to the eye at all. It is worth noting that Rashi learned that the previous chapter did not deal with missing teeth, but with the loss of part of the gums that hold the teeth - the gums are one matter, and the teeth are another matter.
Continuation of visual blemishes:
"Dadav shochvin keshel ishah" - he has breast tissue, to the point that his breasts lie on his chest like those of a woman. This is a rare condition, and he does not perform the service.
"Kreiso tzavah" - his belly is swollen. The intention is not a fat person per se, as obesity is not a blemish; there are fat kohanim, and the approach is even that it is proper to be fat for the purpose of certain services. The problem here is a protrusion coming out of the belly. A swollen belly usually indicates a state of starvation, and it does not seem that this is the intention, but rather that something is protruding from his belly: a tumor, polycystic kidneys and the like. A person can have oversized and unhealthy organs, creating a sort of lump protruding from his belly.
"Tabburo yotzei" - his belly button protrudes outwards. Ostensibly, the intention is an umbilical hernia, where something protrudes from the place where the belly button is located - actually the intestines coming out of there - and the appearance is abnormal. Tosafos does not explain it this way, but rather that it refers to a regular protruding belly button, as opposed to a sunken belly button. This is surprising, but indeed about ninety percent of belly buttons are sunken, and therefore a protruding belly button is an abnormal appearance.
"Nichpeh, afilu achas layamim" - an epileptic person, who has seizures occasionally. It makes no difference if the seizure comes even just once a year: someone who falls in a type of convulsion does not perform the service at any stage, even when he is completely healthy, for those very same reasons - he is not like other people.
"Ruach ketzarah": it is difficult to translate this expression literally. The Bartenura learned that this refers to a person who suffers from bouts of clinical depression, during which he is devoid of emotion and lacking motivation, who is unable to get out of bed and the like. He explains this based on the Greek science of the four humors - the four fluids in a person: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile - and it is the black bile that he notes here as the source. It is worth noting that even the word "melancholia", which means a tendency towards depression, is derived from black bile.
"Hame'ushkan" - The word "eshech" means a testicle, and "me'ushkan" here refers to the scrotum, which is the sac containing the testicles. This refers to a person whose scrotum is unusually large; the Gemara says that it is so large that it reaches his knees. He too is considered abnormal, unlike the rest of the kohanim, and he is prohibited from performing the service in the first place.
"U'ba'al gavar" - One whose organ is unusually long, to the point that it too reaches his knee. Such a length is considered abnormal and unusual, and therefore he too may not perform the service.
It is worth noting that these characteristics are not visible to the public: when the kohen is dressed in the priestly garments with all their details, this is not noticeable at all. However, these things are known, since every kohen goes to the mikvah, and this person was born the way he was born. And such is the law regarding one with a "short spirit": even though he is normal right now, people know that he has these psychological conditions; and similarly with an "epileptic", whose seizures come upon him from time to time. The point is that he is recognized as someone who is not like other people, and therefore he may not perform the service.
"Mero'ach ashech" - Four opinions:
"Eshech" means testicles, and "mero'ach", as will be explained, refers according to many Tanna'im to someone who has something like wind or air in them. The Tanna'im disagree in four opinions as to what "mero'ach ashech" refers to. All four of these abnormal characteristics disqualify a person from serving as a kohen, as he is not like the rest of the kohanim; the dispute is only regarding which specific case the Torah meant by "mero'ach ashech", rendering him disqualified in the first place as one with a blemish.
The Tanna Kamma: "Ein lo beitzim o ein lo ela beitzah achas" - He is missing testicles, or he has only one testicle. We cannot read this entirely literally, since we already learned this in the previous chapter regarding blemishes in animals, and we said that blemishes in animals are also blemishes in humans. Therefore, the explanation is: someone who does not have two testicles in two separate compartments within the scrotum, as there should be two testicles in two separate pouches; or that even if he has two pouches, he has only one testicle in one of them. He too is disqualified and cannot serve as a kohen for the service, and this is "mero'ach ashech ha'amur baTorah" - the "mero'ach ashech" mentioned in the Torah.
Rabbi Yishmael: "Kol shenimrechu ashekav" - "Mero'ach" is from the word nimreach, meaning crushed. Not melted, but crushed and liquidy; his testicles are crushed and liquidy instead of having a normal structure.
Rabbi Akiva: "Kol sheruach ba'ashekav" - Someone who has something like wind in his testicles, testicles that are swollen and filled with air. This is what the verse refers to.
Rabbi Chanina ben Antigonos: His understanding is based on a different type of derivation, which we do not see often: "Gore'in umosifin vedorshin", meaning based on the spelling, we subtract one letter from the next word and add it to the previous word ("gore'in" - to subtract, "umosifin" - to add to another, "vedorshin" - and we expound). It is a rare derivation. Therefore, we read the words "mero'ach ashech" as if they say "marav chashuchim", meaning his facial appearance and the way he looks is dark. This refers to a kohen whose skin tone is unusually dark, unlike the rest of the kohanim, and this is the Torah's prohibition.
Nevertheless, the Amora'im agree that all these things constitute a problem; the dispute is only regarding what the verse "mero'ach ashech" refers to.