This section in which this verse appears describes the command to make a Kiyor (sink) which the Cohanim (Priests, descendants of Aharon/Aaron) used for washing their hands and feet before they performed the Avoda (service) in the Ohel Moed (Tent of Meeting) section of the Mishkan (portable desert Tabernacle), or before the Cohanim used the Mizbayach (altar).

According to the commentary of the famed medieval Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (Ramban), this washing was for the glory of G-d. Just as servants of a human monarch would make sure they were presentable before serving the monarch, so too did the Cohanim before commencing the Avoda.

Hands are mentioned specifically because they are most likely to need cleaning given their general use (this concept is known as ‘Yadayim askaniyot’, see TB Sucah 26b). Feet required cleaning because the Cohanim went barefoot during the Avoda and because feet also require cleaning given their general use.

Onkelos, the primary translator of the Torah (into Aramaic) translates the word ‘verachatzoo’ as ‘and they shall sanctify’, rather than ‘and they shall wash’ which is the way that this word is often translated and how we translated it in the quote above.

Ramban explains that Onkelos teaches us that since legs and arms are at the extremities of the body, they are often the point of our body that initiates actions. As such, they have the potential to be one of the final instruments of whether we sanctify our lives or not. This is one of the reasons that the Cohanim lift up their hands during Duchaning/Nesiat Capayim/Priestly blessing and why it is called Nesiat Capayim, (lifting of the hands).

Today, one of the reasons for us washing our hands before bread (netilat yadayim), is to remember the way the Cohanim sanctified themselves before G-d when eating sanctified foods in Temple times. The other reason is for hygiene (see TB Berachot 53b and Mishna Berura 158:1)

We too, in addition to washing for hygiene, sanctify ourselves before we eat bread to remember how the Cohanim ate in the Beit Hamikdash (Temple). We lift up our hands and let the water drip down, to show that our hands are directed upwards to the source of sanctification. The beracha/blessing we make, of ‘al netilat Yadayim’, is also directed at reminding us of the Cohanim.

Why do we use a vessel for this washing? We’ll discuss that another time, all being well.