פרשת במדבר תשי"ג - מפקד ישראל

... And I have already explained in the Order of Kit Tissa that this commandment of the half shekel - that they should give it at the time of the counting - was not a commandment for [the future] generations, that they should always do this. Rather it was proper advice that when [they] would want to count the people from [their] own thoughts and will, they should do it like this. And they benefited by this - by the giving of silver of the coins by each head from all the people - here for the work of the Tabernacle, for the purpose of the sockets... [As opposed to] if God had commanded to count, since 'the one who keeps a commandment does not know bad' (according to Ecclesiastes 8). Hence now when the count of the people was necessary, He, may He be blessed, commanded that they do it without the coin, [that comes] from fear of the plague - as 'the agents of a commandment are not hurt'. And let him 'not be scared and not tremble' 'from the plague that stalks in the darkness, or the scourge that ravages at noon' (according to Psalms 91:6). And that which Rashi explained that they they counted this time as well (in Numbers 1) with the shekels - with all due respect - is not true in the understanding of the verses. For they testify and tell that that Israel was not counted by shekels, but by their heads...

’Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their polls;

from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: ye shall number them by their hosts, even thou and Aaron.

וידבר… במדבר סיני … באחד לחדש וגו׳ AND [THE LORD] SPOKE [UNTO MOSES] IN THE DESERT OF SINAI … ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE [SECOND] MONTH … [TAKE YE THE SUM OF ALL THE CONGREGATION] etc. — Because they were dear to him, He counts them every now and then: when they went forth from Egypt He counted them (Exodus 12:37), when many of them fell in consequence of their having worshipped the golden calf He counted them to ascertain the number of those left (cf. Rashi Exodus 30:16); when he was about to make His Shechinah dwell amongst them (i. e. when He commanded them to make a Tabernacle), He again took their census; for on the first day of Nisan the Tabernacle was erected (Exodus 40:2) and shortly afterwards, on the first day of Iyar, He counted them.

And they assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month, and they declared their pedigrees after their families, by their fathers’houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, by their polls.