פרשת במדבר תש"ג - הלויים

Now these are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that the LORD spoke with Moses in mount Sinai.

ואלה תולדת אהרן ומשה AND THESE ARE THE OFFSPRING OF AARON AND MOSES — But it mentions only the sons of Aaron! But they also are called the sons of Moses because he taught them the Torah. This tells us that whoever teaches the Torah to the son of his fellow man Scripture regards it to him as though he had begotten him (Sanhedrin 19b).

ביום דבר ה׳ את משה IN THE DAY THAT THE LORD SPAKE TO MOSES did these children (these of Aaron) become his (Moses’) children, because then for the first time he taught them what he heard from the Almighty.

And Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD, when they offered strange fire before the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children; and Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest’s office in the presence of Aaron their father.

And thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons, that they may keep their priesthood; and the common man that draweth nigh shall be put to death.’

ואת אהרן ואת בניו תפקד AND THOU SHALT CHARGE AARON AND HIS SONS — The word תפקד is an expression for “appointing” and not an expression for “counting” (although it is Kal, and usually “appointing” is expressed by the Hiphil of the verb; cf. Rashi on Numbers 1:50).

’And I, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of every first-born that openeth the womb among the children of Israel; and the Levites shall be Mine;

And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying:

Hashem spoke to Moshe in the Sinai desert, saying. The tribe of Levi was not like all the other tribes, because from the age of one month and over, there were only twenty-two thousand, and from the age of thirty they were eight thousand. Therefore, Levites from the age of twenty and above were not even equal to half of the least numerous tribe. And as of yet, they did not carry the Aron, whose holiness would reduce their number. This, then, raises a strong difficulty: How is that His servants and pious ones were not blessed by Hashem as were the rest of the nation? I think that this lends support to the statement of our Rabbis that the tribe of Levi was not enslaved in the crushing Egyptian servitude. This is in contrast to the Israelites, whose lives were embittered by the Egyptians with hard labor so as to reduce their numbers, and in return, the Holy One increased their population, in defiance of the Egyptian decree, as it says, “But the more [the Egyptians] oppressed him, the more [the B’nei Yisrael] increased and spread.” Furthermore, it is stated concerning the verse, “If it is a boy, kill him” — “and the people increased and were very mighty.” This is because Hashem said, “Let us see whose words shall stand, Mine or theirs.” The tribe of Levi, however, multiplied in the normal way and did not increase as much as the other tribes. Perhaps this was due to the elder’s [Yaakov’s] anger at them. Shimon, who was at this point a large population, decreased at the time of entry to Eretz Yisroel to 22,000, and Levi, the tribe of His pious ones, did not decrease in the plague.

וכאשר יענו אתו AND AS THEY AFFLICTED THEM — In whatsoever matter it was that they set their hearts upon afflicting them so was the heart of the Holy One, blessed be He, set upon multiplying them and making them grow apace.

כן ירבה signifies: so they multiplied and so they grew apace (i. e. God’s determination was carried out, the imperfect tenses of the verbs denoting the continuance of the increase and growth). This is the real meaning; but there is a Midrashic explanation of these imperfect tenses: The Holy spirit (God) said this: You say פן ירבה, “lest they increase”, but “I” say כן ירבה, “thus will they assuredly increase” (Sotah 11a).

ויקצו the word means, THEY WERE WEARY OF THEIR LIVES. Our Rabbis explained that it means that they were as thorns (קוצים) in their eyes (cf. Sotah 11a).

All that were numbered of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the LORD, by their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty and two thousand.

שנים ועשרים אלף [ALL THE MALES FROM A MONTH OLD AND UPWARDS WERE] TWENTY AND TWO THOUSAND — But in the enumeration of them given above you will find three hundred more — the sons of Gershon 7500 (v. 22). the sons of Kohath 8600 (v. 28), the sons of Merari C200 (v. 34), making 22,300! Why, then, did Scripture not include them in the sum total together with the others, when they, too, might have redeemed the firstborn of the Israelites (i.e., when each of the 300 might also have served the purpose of replacing a firstborn Israelite, as did the other 22,000; cf. v. 41), and thus the 273 firstborn Israelites who were in excess of the sum total of the Levites as given by Scripture, (the sum total of the firstborn having been 22,273, whilst the Levites, as summed up by Scripture, were only 22,000) would not have required redemption at all (cf. vv. 46—48)!? To this our Rabbis gave the reply in Treatise Bekhorot 5a: those three hundred Levites in question were themselves firstborn, and it was quite sufficient for them to do one thing — that they should free themselves from the necessity of ransom.

הפדיום. The final letter ם here is superfluous just as it is superfluous in the word ריקם instead of simply ריק. (Genesis 31,42), or the same letter in the word הכנם in Exodus 8,13, or in the word שלשום in Genesis 31,2. Our sages explain that there were a total of 300 Levites in excess of the number of firstborn that they were to redeem (replace). (Bechorot 5, compare Rashi on verse 39). The reason that the verse described these as “leftover,” “in excess,” is that a firstborn cannot redeem another firstborn, i.e. there must have been a number of firstborn Levites also.

And those that were to pitch before the tabernacle eastward, before the tent of meeting toward the sunrising, were Moses, and Aaron and his sons, keeping the charge of the sanctuary, even the charge for the children of Israel; and the common man that drew nigh was to be put to death.

משה ואהרן ובניו [BUT THOSE THAT ENCAMP BEFORE THE DWELLING … SHALL BE] MOSES, AND AARON AND HIS SONS — and adjacent to him was the standard of the camp of Judah, and next to the latter were encamped Issachar and Zebulun — “Well is it with the righteous, well with his neighbour!” Because they (the sons of Judah, Issachar and Zebulun) were the neighbours of Moses who occupied himself with the Torah, they themselves became eminent scholars in the Law, as it is said, (Psalms 60:9) “Judah is my lawgiver”; (I Chronicles 12:32) “and of the children of Issachar which were men that had understanding of the times to know what Israel had to do [the heads of them were two hundred]” — i.e., two hundred heads of the Sanhedrin; and (Judges 5:14) “and out of Zebulun came those that handle the pen of the writer” (Midrash Tanchuma, Bamidbar 12).