Bamidbar 2nd Aliya:
Summary: After giving us the numbers for each tribe, the Torah gives us the grand total: 603,550. This number, however, does not include the Levites. Moses was commanded by G‑d not to include the holy tribe in the general census. Instead, the Levites are assigned the following holy tasks: dismantling, carrying, and re-erecting the Tabernacle whenever the Jews traveled, and camping around the Sanctuary, keeping guard over it and its vessels.
1:20 - Seforno picks up on the fact that Reuven is declared as the bechor, even though the rights of two pieces of land actually went to Joseph instead! Why? Because though inheritnace is human, forgiveness is divine. Meaning, because he did teshuva, from the persepctive of heavan, he was the bechor. But not from a human perspective. We learn that there can be a difference between the two. When we read the Torah today, we remember that we are reading God’s history of man, not man’s history of God.
1:21: The numbers are almost all rounded - just look at Reuven, which has 46,500. The Chida, in Rav Chaim Yosef David Azulay, in his Pnei David asks how the numbers could possibly be so exact to the roundest 10. He answers that the Torah is not always so exacting in its numbers. It asks us to count 50 days, when we only actually count 49, etc. Emet LeYaakov, Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky, suggests that heads of the army were appointed by 10, 50, 100s, etc. Sarei Asarot, Sarei Chamishim, etc, which we find in parshat yitro. And we also see in II Kings 1:9-10, that each company of army soldiers were cometimes by fifty, “Then he sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men.” The problem with this, says Rav Yaakov, is that later, in Pinchas, Reuven is 43,730. He suggests that perhaps 20 men had joined Korach, and that was the missing 20. Rabbi Neustadt, in his footnotes to Emet Liyaakov, says that though Rav Yaakov came up with this during his youth, he was afraid to say it until he saw some support in the Meshech Chachma on Pinchas.
It is interesting to note that the total number for everyone comes out to more than 600,000. This number gets some play even in halacha, especially as to what is defined as a public area that one may not carry in on Shabbat, even with an eruv. Some have raised questions as to the enormity of the number, which, given what archeologists and historians can figure out, is much, much larger than comparable nations.
Rav Jeremy Wieder, of YU, teaches Bible there. I have heard him many times support the idea of Kenneth Kitchen that when the Torah means eleph, a thousand, it actually means the same root for “alluf”, battalions, or groups in the army. Meaning, it was not 600,000, but rather 600 troups. This gets into trouble at some points in the count when the sums don’t make sense. But be that as it may, there is room to quibble about it in terms of pshat.
An easier, religious answer, is that Jews will be the first to admit that the numbers are supernatural - we were promised to be greater than the sand in the sea and the stars in the sky. Uvnei Yisrael, paru vayishr'tzu, vayirbu vayaatzmu bim'od m'od, as the midrash explains, there were many times the normal amount of births in Irael in Egypt. Meaning, its not meant to fit into what other nation populations of the time.
1:32 - Ramban points out that though here that though Menashe is the bechor, Ephraim is mentioned first, and even Yosef’s name is attached to him, for several reasons. One is that his tribe was the bearer of the flag, and he was given the rights of the bechor through the switching of birkat yaakov. Also, his number is bigger. This explains why in Arvot Moav, that count has menashe first, because at that time their number is bigger. When it came to meraglim, though ephraim is mentioned first, yosef’s name is attached to menashe. Why? Ramban’s first suggestion is fascinating. he says that at least homiletically, since Yosef spoke lashon hara against the brothers, he was attached to a tribe that spoke lashon hara about the land. He never broke away from this connection.
1:42 - All the other tribes say “Lbnei…” and yet here with regard to Naftali it says just “bnei”. The Baal haTurim suggests that its because Naftali had many more women than men. When you look at Naftali’s blessing, there is even a hint to this in Yaakov’s beracha to him: he is called a loose deer, the words used אַיָּלָה שְׁלֻחָה--הַנֹּתֵן, eleph, shin, heh. Indeed, Rabbeinu Bachya says this is why he is described in the feminine tense in the beracha.
However, there is a tradition that it is the opposite, that they had more men than women and that is why it emphasized “bnei”. We see this in Midrash hagadol, and Yalkut Reuveni, and others.
1:49 - Why wasn’t Levi part of the count? Rashi suggests first they were put apart because they were the “king’s men” so to speak. They should therefore be counted separately, apart from the regular people. His second suggestion is that most of the people would die in the desert. Better count those who wouldn’t die separately. Rashbam suggests that it is because the count was only for the war, and they are not part of the war effort. They were counted separately for the service. Seforno and Ramban points out that Levi had no Nasi appointed for them, and therefore Moshe wasn’t sure what to do, so he held off to wait for God’s command. God commanded they should not be included. Seforno has an interesting phrase, that they were a tribe that had not “prepared themselves for being gathered.” Levi were individuals who did not take to peer pressure. Perhaps this could explain why they weren’t part of the sin of the golden calf. In this, Rashi and Seforno see the same aspect.
1:54 - Bnei Yisrael do all that which God commanded. What did God command to Bnei Yisrael? Wasn’t it just the leviim who were command to construct and reconstruct the mishkan as they traveled? The only command given to Bnei Yisrael was that they shouldnt touch it under threat of death. Ibn Ezra suggests that this is indeed what the pasuk refers to. But how did they do that? They were passively not doing something. It would seem that they affirmed that they would hold themselves back from touching it, and perhaps made (literal) fences for such purposes. If anyone has an answer to this I’d like to hear it.
Fourth Aliyah: The Levites are appointed to serve in the Tabernacle, guard its vessels and assist the priests with their Tabernacle duties.This is given to the Levites, and the bechor needs to be redeemed.
3:1 - Sanhedrin 19b, and Rashi brings down, that its calls them the offpsring of Moshe and Aaron, yet only speaks about Aaron’s children. This teaches us, says the gemara, that one who teaches Torah to someone, it is considered as if he is their father. It should be pointed out that the Rashbam and Ramban both think that on a pshat level, this is uneccessary. Moshe’s family is subsumed under the Amramites, who are mentioned later in pasuk 27. In fact, says the Rambam, if one looks at how Divrei haYamim mention Moshe and Aaron, it follows this exact formula as the Amramites. Aaron’s children are spoken of at length because they were the kohanim. Ramban has an interesting understanding of what the gemara is doing. On a pshat level, everything makes sense. But in drash, the fact that it says “these are the generations of moshe and aharon,” when it could have said “these are the generations of aharon,” and later, “these are the generations of moshe”, allow the rabbis, says Ramban, to find a hint to this idea in it. The last words in the comment of the Ramban are “for the Torah is explicit, but it also hints.” The question to think about is, are these hints embedded in the Torah from the start, or is the Ramban saying that we can draw on irregularities for our own lessons?
The Netziv asks, what does it mean that becasue he taught aharon’s children, he was called their father? Shouldn’t he be the father to all of Israel, since he taught them all Torah? He thinks that the hint is rather the fact that the end of the verse says “the words that God spoke et moshe,” and not “el moshe”. There is a closer relationship, it seems, between what God spoke to Moshe and what he taught to the sons of Aharon. They really carried out what they were meant to carry out, as the pesukim go on to explain. He fathered them, he fashioned them into who they were supposed to be, because they didn’t just learn from him, they acted according to his teachings, which couldn’t necessarily be said about the rest of klal yisrael.
It would seem this could explain a strange thing. In Sanhedrin 99b. the Talmud learns out the same statement, that one who teaches someone Torah is as if he fathered him, but its not from this Pasuk. It’s learned from Avarahm and Sarah, who in bereshit 7:5 are described as “creating souls in Charan”. They didn’t make golems, they taught monotheism and that is considered having fashioned them. Why do we need two pesukim, ours here and the one in Bereshit, to teach us the same thing? My grandfather, Rav Chaim Zev Bomzer, alav hashalom, once noted that we never hear of the souls made in Charan ever again. Where’d they go? He answered that its well and good to teach someone Torah. Sure, you’ve made him a new person. previously, the people in Charan were pagans, and now they saw the beauty of Moral Monotheism. But did they stick to it? Did they follow through in their own lives? They were inspired in the moment, but to act according to moral principles is hard, to follow a regimen and to keep it. They disappeared after a while. Never heard from again. But what we see here is that when you teach someone, and they follow through, it is truly a father-son kind of relationship where you have fashioned him and set him on a path. That was the relationship Moshe had with Aaron’s children, and is embedded in the pshat - it was an “et” relationship instead of an “el” relationship, and the description after of the sons following through with what Moshe taught.
3:12 - This aliyah is all about what the levites are specifically supposed to do in the Mishkan. And then it states at the end that “vehayu li haleviim” - God says the leviim are consecrated to him to do the service in the mishkan, instead of the firstborns. What does it mean, instead of the firstborns? Rashi,,based on the midrash, says that the firstborns lost their chance to serve in the mikdash because they were part of the chet haegel, while the leviim were not. So they took over the job.
I have had some questions with this accepted and assumed explanation that I’d like to share with you. I believe I have come up with a new, pshat based understanding of this that I have not seen anywhere else. If someone has seen this suggestion somewhere, I would be very excited to see it.
The questions are these: Firstly, if the firstborns were originally supposed to do the service, why is this never mentioned before? Why do we have no evidence in the pesukim for this original plan? Not only that, but if such a huge switch in jobs in klal yisrael happened after the chet haegel, wouldn’t we expect the Torah to tell us at that point instead of the Torah assuming the leviim took over and then explaining in hints why this is true? Why isn’t this story made explicit? And doesn’t the Torah also believe that the children are not punished for the sins of the father? How can it be that the bechorot became pasul for the service because of the chet haegel, and this applied for all generations?
Each of these questions I think can be answered within the assumption of the chet haegel narrative regarding the first borns. But I think, by force of the questions, we could maybe answer something else within pshat. It goes like this.
In the ancient world, indeed throughout the Biblical literature, people were sacrificing their firstborn children. It was fairly common. Not just their children, but specifically their firstborns. The king of Moav in 2 Kings 3:27 sacrificed his firstborn child. Micah asks, 'Shall I give my firstborn for my sin, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' (Micah 6:7), and God says all he wants is acts of lovingkindness and justice. There’s some evidence in Yechezkel for the practice as well.
But the Torah prohibits it, completely, children and firstborns included.
Since the prevailing culture considered the firstborns “hekdesh” so to speak, consecrated to God, the Torah does a nice switcheroo - it takes the levites in their stead, and makes them hekdesh, consecrated to the mikdash. But not as the sacrifices, but rather the ones performing the service. That is why the pasuk says the levites took over for the bechors - in terms of prevailing culture. As pasuk 13 says, God considers the firstborns his, but implants the levites in their stead. The concept the Torah conveys is that parents cannot have absolute control over their children, their lives. It puts an end to it, in a way that everyone living at that time would recognize, without being overly counterculture. It needs to be accepted by the people. This is why there is pidyon haben, for the bechor specifically. He needs to be redeemed from hekdesh, so to speak.
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