Hello all you wilderness seekers,
That’s right, we have finally made it into the book of the wilderness. This shabbat we will read parsha (weekly Torah portion) B’meedbar (which means wilderness in Hebrew), and this pasha also happens to be the first parsha of the fourth book of the Torah. This book has the same name as the parsha, but is called Numbers in English because it begins and ends with a census of all the tribes. Let’s wander into it and see what we can uncover.
The parsha begins with haShem (god) speaking to Moshe (Moses) in the tent of meeting in the Sinai wilderness on the first day of the second month of the second year of the leaving of Egypt. Just to give us a time reference, the mishcan (tabernacle) was first erected exactly one month earlier. It was also one month ago that two of Aharon’s sons offered a strange fire and died. We had twelve days of gifts brought by the tribes and we also had an eight day initiation ritual for Aharon and his sons.
And the new month begins with haShem telling Moshe to account for the number of males over 20 who are fit to join a gathering, and to do it by tribe. The counters are to be Moshe, Aharon, and one member from each tribe, with haShem naming each man. God commands this to be done on that very same day as well.
Guess what?
Moshe accounted for everyone just as haShem commanded him. We then are given a list of the count of each tribe. The final total is 603,550. This does not include the tribe of Levi because they are involved with looking after the mishcan, taking it down, and setting it up, and keeping everyone away from it. Moshe is also told that the tribe of Levi will camp around the mishcan while everyone else will camp around his banner. All this, we read, was done just as haShem said. We next read about how each tribe was arrayed when the camp moved and when the tribes were encamped. Included in this discussion is a grouping of three tribes in each of the four directions, north, east, south, and west. At this time, we are given another count based on the number of men camped in each direction. In this counting, we are told who THE tribal leaders are. Amazingly, we are told that when counted this way, we also get a total of 603,550.
After all this about the tribes, our parsha changes direction and starts to talk about the generations of Aharon and Moshe. We learn the names of Aharon’s sons and that they were anointed as priests. We relearn that two of them die offering a strange fire before haShem. HaShem then tells Moshe to bring the tribe of Levi before Aharon the priest for they are to be given over to Aharon and his sons from the children of Yisrael.
The Levites, we discover, are in place of the first born children, and the Levite animals are in place of the first born animals. This is because haShem claimed the first born for himself when she killed the first born of Egypt. Hence, a count of all the Levite males from the age of one month is needed. We get this tally, along with the names of each of the families of the tribe of Levi. We also learn what part of the mishcan each family is responsible for and where they will camp in regards to the mishcan. Finally we read that Moshe and Aharon’s family will camp in the east at the mouth of the mishcan, and the final tally of Levites males is 22,000. Naturally we now need to count the first born males of the other tribes and this is done and we find there are 22,273. The 22,000 Levites redeem 22,000 first born. HaShem tells Moshe that the remaining 273 first born are to be redeemed at a price of 5 shekels apiece with the money going to Aharon and his sons.
The parsha now focuses on the family of Kehat in the tribe of Levi. We need a count of the males between 30 and 50 of those that can join the gathering to do work in the tent of meeting. Their task is to carry the holy of holies. We now learn how, when the camp travels, Aharon and his sons will take down and cover the ark, the two alters, the menorah, the table with its show bread, and all the vessels that are used in regard to these things. Only after everything is completely covered and ready to move are the sons of Kehat allowed to enter. If the Kehati family touches the unwrapped objects, or even watches as the sanctuary is torn down and covered, they will die. And with those words, our parsha ends.
Quite a parsha, don’t you think? There are a couple of things that struck me as I was reading it. The first is the observation that the tribe of Yehudah (Judah) headed the trio of tribes that camped to the east of the mishcan, and the entrance of the mishcan was in the east. Add to this observation something that the sages of our tradition said: that the body of each person is a temple, and I think god, through our Torah, is telling us that since Yehudah comes from the word that means gratitude, and Yehudah is at the mouth of the mishcan, we should always have gratitude coming out of our mouths.
This year I noticed that while Yehudah was in the east on the outside circle of the camp, Moshe and Aharon’s family are camped directly in front of the mouth of the mishcan in order to prevent strangers from entering the mishcan and dying. From this, we can learn that not only are we to watch what comes out of our mouth, but also what we put into ourselves. Primarily this concerns what we eat, but it also relates to what we take in with all our senses because it doesn’t matter how a strange person enters the mishcan; if they enter they will die. This is teaching that we need to watch what we consume.
This is where kosher food comes into play. Pork is considered to be a foreign substance. What does it do? I don’t know, but it won’t be good for us. Like over-indulging in tobacco and alcohol and sugar and other things, it might not have an immediate noticeable effect. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t harming us.
This is also true of what we see and what we hear and even what we smell and touch. Just as Moshe and the priests, the holiest of people, were protecting the holy of holies, so too, we need to connect to the holiest part of ourselves which will tell us what is ok to eat or see, and what is strange to drink and hear – the things that will cause premature death. The things that the part of us that is closest to divinity says is not good for us, we need to not allow to enter our bodies, through any of our senses.
Not a bad first thing to see in the parsha, don’t you think?
Another thing I noticed has to do with the counting of the tribes. When the tribes are counted, haShem does not say to count the people; rather, haShem says to count the names and the skulls of the people. Why is that? The sages say it is because haShem promised Avraham that his children would be as numerous as the stars and nobody could count all the stars. However, names or skulls can be counted. It is for this reason that many people, when they count to see if there is a minyan (quorum of 10 men for certain prayers), they don’t say, “One, two, three,” rather they will say the words of a ten word sentence. If the sentence is complete, then they have enough men.
This in itself I can live with. However, later in the parsha, when the tribe of Levi is counted, they are counted. It doesn’t say count names or skulls or anything else. Moshe is told to count the Levites. This certainly seems to contradict what I just said about not counting the people.
The answer to this is also found in our parsha, fortunately. Our parsha explains that originally the first born were to belong to haShem as payment for killing the first born in Egypt. Later, haShem decides that the tribe of Levi will be his special servants and hence all the first born have to be redeemed by a Levi. Now since each member of the tribe of Levi has been taken by haShem, that person, in a sense, is not longer part of the offspring of Avraham that haShem was referring to that would be more numerous than the stars. Hence, there can be a limited, countable number of them, and it is ok to actually count people in the tribe of Levi – but only the people in the tribe of Levi because only the tribe of Levi belongs to haShem in this manner.
Speaking of counting, the Torah uses a funny word here for counting the tribes. The root of the verb is pey-koof-daled which also means to redeem, to order, to command, or to be a clerk. Somehow all these usages are related to what haShem is asking when he asks Moshe to count the tribes. The meaning that stood out for me was to redeem. What I read was that as each person was being counted, he was also being redeemed. The Torah can easily be read this way because the conjugation that is used for almost every tribe’s tally is pkudahem which can mean their count, or their redemption. I say almost because there is one exception to this. When we read the final count of the tribe of Shimon, the word is conjugated as pkudav which can mean their count for him or their redemption of him. Why is Shimon being singled out here? Even the count for the tribe of Levi uses pkudahem. Why not Shimon?
The reason is related to why I chose to emphasize redemption as the meaning of the word over, say, command or order. This count was not just a simple count. This count was also a redemption process for the people. haShem’s presence was now in and part of the camp. All the excitement of building the mishcan and seeing haShem come down in a cloud, and the initiation of the priesthood had been over for a couple of weeks. The people were falling asleep and starting to return to their old habits and not paying attention to their level of tahor (purity), especially in regards to the mishcan.
They needed a wake-up call. Our parsha begins by making a point of saying the time that haShem talks to Moshe in the tent of meeting. I think that is because this might have been the first major time since the setting up of the tent that haShem came to Moshe to tell him to tell the people something. The reason it was at that time was because the people needed a jolt to wake up to the fact that they were falling back into mundane life, and life now was not intended to be mundane because haShem was in their life. Not only did haShem want to grab their attention, he also was willing to give the people a break and redeem them from any sins they might have done as they were falling back into routine. So, as each and every person counted, they were also redeemed.
This explanation works for all the tribes but Shimon. How do we explain about them? Why does it say they redeemed him?
To me, the Torah is hinting that the children of Shimon, by their following haShem’s orders, have redeemed Shimon himself for the massacre he committed at Shchem.
Now, I already know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “But Shimon wasn’t alone! When did Levi get redeemed? Or is he still carrying his guilt?” These are good questions.
The answer is that the tribe of Levi already redeemed Levi, otherwise they could not have taken the place of the first born. When did this happen? I think it was done when Moshe came down from the mountain and saw the golden calf and called all those faithful to haShem to come to him. It was only the tribe of Levi that joined Moshe and it was also that act that provided the redemption for Levi himself. Why? Because what they did in Shchem, they did for the honor of their sister. By joining Moshe, they were taking the, “Vengeance for another’s honor,” and using it for the honor of haShem.
This concept is a little tricky to understand. What I want to say is that sometimes you can do something for the honor of another person that goes against the desire of the divine. However, if you only act for the honor of divinity, then you can never go against the wishes of god. This is the t’shuva (repentance) that the tribe of Levi did for the sin that Levi himself did. This is when Levi himself was redeemed. And, since the tribe of Shimon did not join Moshe, Shimon himself had never been redeemed for his part in the massacre at Shchem… until they get counted and the pkudav/ they redeemed him, as it says in our parsha.
So, what can we learn from all this talk on redemption? Redemption for not only ourselves, but also for those who have come before us can be as simple as standing up and being counted.
I was hoping to share some thoughts about the names of the leaders of the tribes, but this has gotten a bit long, so I guess it will have to wait for another time.
May all of us hear the call to stand up and be counted and redeem not only ourselves, but also our ancestors who helped us to be who we are today.
If you care to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.