I believe that there is a very simple answer to this question, but it is
*so* simple that our knee-jerk reaction is to say "that answer is too
simple, it is too pat, it cannot be correct". The answer being, of
course, that G-d *does* believe in distinguishing between different
classes of people.
The truth, though, is that we do not get a chance to seriously consider
that answer, because it never occurs to us to begin with. And the reason
for that is that our grade-school teachers used the Declaration of
Independence to brainwash us into believing that "we hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ..." -- when in fact,
what the authors of the Declaration *meant* was that "all adult white
males are created equal". (My evidence for this is that we needed
amendments to the Constitution in order to prohibit the various forms of
discrimination, and even now, age discrimination is allowed over a
certain cutoff point.)
If you think about it, there are many ways in which various people are
second-class citizens, and our society recognizes it as such:
** If an American couple is out of the country when their child is
born, that child will have automatic American citizenship, yet forever
be forbidden to become President of the United States. No matter how
popular a politician he/she might become, by accident of birth he will
be disqualified from the Presidency.
** If someone moves to another locality shortly before Election Day,
he will not yet have established residency there. He is considered a
non-resident (i.e., second-class citizen) by his new hometown. He may or
may not be able to vote (by absentee ballot) in the elections in his old
home, but that will not enable him to vote for the people who will be
governing him in the new place.
** If I am not mistaken, a convicted felon is prohibited from voting
ever again in his life. And this applies even after he has served his
time, paid his fine, and has supposedly repaid his debt to society! Even
if there are good reasons for this rule, you cannot escape the fact that
in this regard, he has become a second-class citizen.
But, one might ask, those are societal decisions. Could it possibly be
that G-d, Who created us all, would subscribe to such a concept? I say
that He does. For when He creates each person, He gives every single
person certain abilities and certain disablities. This is not by
"accident of birth" but by "design of birth". Many of these disabilities
can be overcome by determination, but others are absolute: Women can
give birth; men cannot. I want to be able to give birth, but I am a man.
Why did G-d make me a second-class citizen?
And so we return to the original question, and I suggest that just as a
woman has certain physical abilities which I lack, so too a Kohen has
certain spiritual abilities which I lack. Those spiritual abilities
enable the Kohen to serve as a conduit for G-d's blessings on Yom Tov,
and in recognition of these spiritual abilities we honor him with the
first aliya.
TWO MORE VERY IMPORTANT POINTS:
1) Are non-Jews second-class people? I presume that there is something
about being Jewish which is important to you. It is true that non-Jews
can convert, but until and unless they do, they are denied those things
which you value so highly, and this is purely "by accident of birth", as
you put it.
2) It is important to know that the basic law is that aliyas should be
allocated on the basis of spiritual accomplishment, and *not* by class
privelege. In theory, all else being equal, a non-Kohen who is a scholar
should take precedence over a Kohen who is an ignoramus. In practice,
however, such a procedure easily leads to jealousy, broken egos, and
broken friendships, especially when a Kohen and non-Kohen are near the
same level. This led to adopting of the current practice of always
calling up the kohen first, so that no one would be in the position of
having to decide whether or not A's scholarship outranks B's Kohen-ness.
I sincerely hope that I have not offended anyone in any of the above.
Akiva Miller