Bamidbar Chapter 4 – Transcript

Bamidbar Chapter 4: The Service and Census of the Levites

Introduction: Structure and Repetition

This chapter includes two parts, both of which are duplicates of previous parts but adding details. We need to understand why there are so many details and so many repetitions. As we discussed, there’s something going on all over this—we should be able to imagine it and to see it in detail.

The first part is, as we discussed earlier, the pikkudim and the avodah. This chapter has both of them. In some sense we already had both of them before, so we have to understand why it’s divided so many times. We have the pikkudim—sorry, first the avodah b’nei Levi. As it says, the avodah b’nei Levi, and each one—it doesn’t say b’nei Levi, it says for each family: Kehat, Gershon, and Merari, in that order, different than the order before. It gives us their jobs and describes in detail how exactly they will do it, how exactly the order of them carrying the Mishkan as it’s taken out of its place. Every time it describes that exactly.

So that’s the story of the avodah. Then it gives again an account, or maybe a slightly more detailed account, of the pikkudim b’nei Levi—the counts of the Leviim, all of them in detail and in total.

The Command: Moshe and Aharon

We start again with a mitzvah and a command. Each one has a mitzvah, and then it says that it’s done. It says Hashem tells Moshe and Aharon. Another thing we should keep in mind: why sometimes it’s Moshe only, why sometimes Moshe and Aharon. All the pikkudim must say explicitly that they’re Moshe and Aharon. For the previous things—the taking the Leviim instead of the bechorim, things like that—is only Moshe.

So again, the pikkudim seems to be the main thing over here. But then the things which are—that’s Moshe and Aharon—the things that are like separate stories that are somewhat combined in it, are only Moshe.

The Command to Count Bnei Kehat

Back to where I am: Hashem commands Moshe to be naso rosh—in other words, to command them, to give them their positions, to appoint them (I think is the best translation) of b’nei Kehat, specifically out of the children of Levi, to their families. As we said, families are somewhat levels of their—like each one has different families within them.

The Age Requirement: 30 to 50

Here we get an age. So the pikkudim—ah, this is a big difference. The pikkudim count the Levi and exchange them for the bechorim from when they’re a month. But now we’re going to the naso rosh, which is giving them, appointing them to this specific position, specific jobs. That is done only from 30 to 50. So even less, even more limited than the from 20 and without any age limit above. This is very limited, from 30 to 50.

That’s apparently the prime years of a person’s life—between 30 and 50. That’s when he’s going to come to the tzava, or maybe it doesn’t literally mean army, because obviously he’s not doing an army. It’s sort of an organization of doing something for the melachah of the Ohel Moed.

The Avodah of Bnei Kehat: Kodesh Hakodashim

Then it gives the avodah b’nei Kehat. As I said, Kodesh Hakodashim. Earlier we didn’t have this definition—we just gave the names, the things that they’re doing. But now we know the Kehat is doing the Kodesh Hakodashim.

The Prohibition Against Direct Contact

It describes how this will be done. First, Aharon—the Kehat can’t touch, as we say, we’ll see explicitly after this part. Kehat cannot touch directly this Kodesh Hakodashim. They’re very holy. Part of this whole story here is protecting the sanctity, the kedushah of the keilim and the Mishkan. Not anyone could come and touch them. There’s a whole process, there’s the levels of hierarchy.

Like hakbalah, right? Ramban says all of this is the hakbalah of the Mishkan, analogous to the hakbalah of Har Sinai that we had in the story of Har Sinai.

The Covering Process by Aharon and His Sons

First, Aharon and his children, the Kohanim, will come as the machaneh is traveling. When they’re announced that the machaneh is traveling—we’ll see then in B’ha’alotcha how that was announced—they will take down the parochet and cover the Aron with the parochet. Then on top of that they’ll cover another cover of or tachash, and on top of that another cover of techelet. Then they will put the badim, although maybe the badim are supposed to be there all the time, so we have to understand. Or maybe this is talking about another kind of badim that we’re carrying the Aron with, some kind of a cover, a fabric cover, or like maybe like a bag or something like that.

Each of these—in other words, when the Mishkan is in its place, it’s all covered by the parochet, the parochet and the masach from outside. Now when it’s traveling, when they’re taking out the vessels from the Mishkan, they still need to be covered. So they get a special new covering for the times of travel. This is like a specific special covering.

The Shulchan

The same thing: the Shulchan. They put a techelet on it, and on that they put all the vessels that belong, all the utensils that belong to the Shulchan—the ke’arot, the kapot, the menakiyot, the kesot hanasech, and the bread. Then on top of that they put a bag of tola’at shani, and then another cover of tachash, and again samu et badav.

So that’s how the Shulchan is sort of packed up. But I think this whole packing up has a—like I said—a ritual aspect, has a kedushah aspect, in the sense that it’s protecting it, protecting its kedushah.

The Menorah

Then the same thing: they take another bag of techelet and cover the Menorah, its lamps, all of its utensils, all the tools, the utensils of its oil. They put it all into a tachash. So here we see the Menorah didn’t have badim—it had some kind of motot, which it was carried along with this fabric thing.

The Mizbeach HaZahav

Same thing: they cover it with a bag of techelet and tachash, and put the badim. Then they take all the kelei shareit of the Mizbeach and put it on top, and put it into that bag of techelet, and cover it with a tachash, and put it in the mot.

The Mizbeach HaNechoshet

Then the Mizbeach HaNechoshet. The same thing: they first deshen—they take out the ashes and the deshen of the Mizbeach. Of course when you travel you have to clean it up, so it’s not going to like pour all over. Put it on top of a bag of argaman.

So this is a lower level. You’ll notice that there’s also levels in these things. The Aron was covered with parochet itself, which was made from techelet and argaman and tola’at shani and so on. The next level of keilim—the Menorah, the Shulchan, and the Mizbeach itself—were covered with techelet. And the Mizbeach HaNechoshet was covered with a bag of argaman, which is one level lower than techelet.

They put in it all its utensils that service it: the machtot, the mizlagot, the ya’im, the mizrakot. They put it on top of tachash—all of them get their tachash on top—and put the badim.

The Warning Against Touching

Then they finish covering everything. Now after all of this, the b’nei Kehat get to come. V’lo yig’u el hakodesh—they shouldn’t touch the kodesh, and then they will die if they would have touched the kodesh. This is the avodah of the b’nei Kehat, the masa of b’nei Kehat. They carry the things that they carry in the Ohel Moed.

The Role of Elazar

Now Elazar—we discussed earlier Elazar and the children of Aharon had also jobs. Elazar ben Aharon, his job is to take care of the oil itself, the ketoret, and the oil, and the minchat hatamid. There was a tamid minchah—remember minchat chavitin that we made—and the shemen hamishchah.

In other words, the Leviim take care of the keilim, but the avodah itself, or the shemen and the minchah, the things that they do the avodah with—that is something that the Kohanim have to take care of. So it’s a higher level.

Special Warning: Al Tachristu

Now since we discussed that this whole thing is a huge amount of care, of protection, how nothing should touch the kodesh and so on, we have a specific mitzvah just talking about this. Hashem tells Moshe and Aharon: “Al tachristu et shevet mishpachot haKehati mitoch haLeviim.”

Don’t let the shevet of Kehat—the internal shevet, Kehat, right? Now interesting that they’re called shevet again, because shevet is the Leviim. Now Kehat is also called the shevet. Don’t let them be cut off from the Leviim, because they are doing a very dangerous job, so to speak. They have the most dangerous job. Therefore you have to make sure that all of this is done correctly. It’s really just another warning that all of this is done correctly.

If you want them to live and not die when they come to the Kodesh Hakodashim, Aharon’s children should come and put each of them on his work, on his masa. Just like a special warning for Aharon and his children to make sure to come and do all of the things that we discussed before. Before the Leviim—if they will come and if they will touch or see or something like that, they might die.

End of Parsha and Continuation to Gershon

Here is also the end of Parsha HaMidbar. Whoever cut up the parsha, I have no idea why they cut up here, because this is a clear continuation.

Same thing from b’nei Gershon. Now we’re going on to nesi’at rosh b’nei Gershon, to count them. There’s the same language, so we’re not going to repeat it.

The Avodah of Bnei Gershon

Now we give the avodah b’nei Gershon—also the avodah and the masa. They carry, as we said before, the yeri’ot, all the fabric parts, and the masach, and the fabrics of the chatzer, and all the parts of them. There isn’t any explanation of how it’s done, because it’s pretty obvious. There isn’t any special halachot of this.

Now we have one addition: that Aharon and his children command all of this. So like we said before, Aharon and his children have to give the avodah. Of course they give them that, they cover it. So hopefully, the same thing for Gershoni—although there isn’t that—it’s still, the Aharon and his children are still in charge of it. It’s al pihem—it’s according to their command. They will take care of it, and that’s Itamar that takes care of this.

The Avodah of Bnei Merari

Now we talk about Merari. Merari again, we have the same preface and so on. What do they do? As we said, they carry all the wooden parts, so to speak, of the Mishkan: the kerashim and the amudim of the chatzer, and everything related to that.

They will also be commanded with names by Itamar. Itamar is in charge of the avodah of the children of Merari. This is probably a bigger job, because it’s a lot of wood, a lot of things to carry. B’shemot—they will be counted by names. As we said, all these counters are those by names, and probably each name gets his job. You know, Itamar’s job was to say, “You, Ploni ben something ben Merari, your job will be to carry this keresh,” and so on.

The New Census: Pikkudim B’nei Levi

That’s the story of the nesi’at rosh b’nei Levi. Now we get the story of the pikkudim b’nei Levi. Again, counted not from one month as before, which was for the purpose of the pidyon bechorim, but for the purpose of the avodah. So that’s a new pikkudim. That’s why I said that it’s double—it’s not really double, it’s just maybe somehow this could have all been combined, but it’s a new thing.

The Count of Kehat

Vayifkod Moshe v’Aharon v’nesi’ei ha’edah—they count the Kehati, again from 30 to 50. They end up with the amount of 2,750 people. That’s Kehat.

The Count of Gershon

For Gershon, they do the same thing. They end up with the amount of 2,630.

The Count of Merari

For Merari, they do the same thing. They end up with the amount of 3,200 people.

Total and Conclusion

This is the end. There’s an “eleh pekudei”—for each one there’s the beginning of the eleh. Total of the Leviim, all of them together, comes out to be 8,580, right?

This is a lot less than the count of the Leviim with the bechorim, which came out to 22,000, or with children. So it’s interesting to see the ratio of children to higher ages, or not only children, right, also older people. But the avodah was only eight and a half thousand and eighty people.

Each one of them was appointed on his avodah, on his masa, as Hashem commanded Moshe. That’s the end of this whole series of pikkudim.

Bamidbar Chapter 5: Bekudim

The total count of the Levites for active service, ages 30 to 50, comes to 8,580 people. This is significantly less than the previous Levite census of 22,000, which was used for pidyon bechorim, the redemption of the firstborns. The difference highlights the ratio between the total Levite population—including children under 30 and elderly over 50—versus those in their prime service years. The comparison reveals interesting demographic information about the proportion of children and older individuals versus those of active service age within the Levite population.

Each of the 8,580 Levites was individually appointed to his specific avodah, his service duty, and his masa, his transportation responsibility. This was done exactly as Hashem commanded Moshe.

This concludes the entire series of Pekudim, the census counts, in this section of Bamidbar.