Numbers 1:1-4:20

Without Looking

 

This week’s Torah reading begins with a detailed census of Israel’s tribes. However, the Levites are not included in the census; they are listed separately afterwards.

 

According to the Torah, there were three main clans of Levites: the Gershonites, the Kohathites, and the Merarites. (These are referred to by the word mishpaḥah in this week’s reading, a word that came to mean “family” in later Hebrew; but in biblical Hebrew mishpaḥah generally refers to a larger unit, a clan or sub-tribe.)

 

Each of these clans was assigned specific duties with regard to the moveable sanctuary (mishkan) that accompanied the Israelites on their wanderings in the wilderness. The Gershonites were charged with taking care of the lower coverings of the mishkan, the tent and its coverings, and much more. The Kohathites were put in charge of the ark inside the mishkan, plus the table, the menorah, the altars, and so forth. The Merarites were given authority over the planks supporting the mishkan as well as various other appurtenances.

 

The three clans’ duties were not exactly equal. The things entrusted to the Kohathites’ care were by far the holiest of all. The ark contained the Ten Commandments, written “by the finger of God” (Deut 9:10, 10:5). The table, the menorah, and the altars were of similar holiness. In fact, these things were so sacred that the Kohathites themselves were not allowed to move them out of their places whenever the mishkan had to be disassembled and taken to a new locale. Instead, the priests (kohanim) first had to cover these sacred objects with special coverings. Only then could the Kohathites (who, as Levites, were of a lesser degree of sanctity than the kohanim) “come and lift them” (Num 4:15).

 

In next week’s Torah reading, we are given one additional detail about the process of taking down the mishkan to transport it to a new location. Moses gave the Levites six wagons in which to put the various parts of the mishkan when it had to be moved. Since, as we have just seen, there were three main clans of Levites, each clan ought to have gotten two wagons apiece to transport the various parts of the mishkan that they had been assigned.

 

But that isn’t what happened. The Gershonites got two wagons, the Merarites got four, and the Kohathites, who were charged with transporting the holiest objects, got…none! “Let them carry (the sacred objects) on their shoulders,” the Torah says (Num 7:9).

 

This seems completely counterintuitive. If the objects assigned to the Kohathites were so sacred that the priests had to keep them covered lest the Kohathites themselves should catch a glimpse of them, how were these objects now going to be carried by hand, “on the shoulders” of the Kohathites? Wouldn’t it make sense to give the wagons first and foremost to the Kohathites, so as to make sure that nothing violated the objects’ sanctity? Yet the Torah says, as if everyone would understand why, that “To the Kohathites he (Moses) did not give any wagons; since the job of (transporting) the holiest objects was entrusted to them, they would carry them on their shoulders.”

 

The things that are holiest must sometimes require extra effort, precisely because they are the holiest. Indeed, the Rabbis connected this phenomenon with a certain verse from the book of Proverbs: “If you merely glance at it, it flies away” (Prov 23:5). This is the risk with whatever is holy, and why it demands our greatest respect, whatever the cost: “Let them carry them on their shoulders.”

 

Shabbat shalom!