Bemidbar 5786
Family of Rivals
This week we are beginning the book of Numbers, so we’re reading Parashat Bemidbar (Num 1:1-4:20). You notice that Numbers 4 is split between this week’s reading and next week’s. That seems strange, since Numbers 3, which is all about YHWH choosing the Levites to serve him, carefully notes that Moses is to take a census of the Levites. It goes on to point out that there are three different Levite clans: those descended from Levi’s sons Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
Yet in Numbers 4 YHWH gives Moses three separate commands to count and record the three clans individually — and two of those commands, and all three of the censuses that do the actual counting, will have to wait for next week. Why does this week’s reading stop after v. 20?
Don Isaac Abarbanel, the Iberian-Jewish politico (specializing in financial affairs) who left Spain with the rest of the Jews who refused to convert in 1492, was a scholar as well. He posed the same question (given here in my Commentators’ Bible translation) at the beginning of his commentary on Parashat Naso, as one of the mysteries he intended to solve:
Why does the weekly portion [of Naso] begin with the census of the Gershonites rather than at the beginning of the chapter, with the census of the Kohathites? It would have been even better to include all of ch. 4 in the previous portion and begin the new portion with ch. 5.
It’s perhaps even more surprising that the chapter begins with the Kohathites, and they are given the responsibility for “the most sacred objects” (Num 4:4). After all, whenever all three boys are listed together, Gershon’s name comes first:
“Levi’s sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari” (Gen. 46:11)
“These are the names of Levi’s sons by their lineage: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari” (Exod 6:16)
“These were the sons of Levi by name: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari” (Num 3:17)
“The sons of Levi: Gershom, Kohath, and Merari” (1 Chron 5:27)
“The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari” (1 Chron 23:6)
Yet there is one place where the order is Kohath, Gershon, and Merari as in Numbers 4. Here it is:
Josh 21:1 The heads of the ancestral houses of the Levites approached the priest Eleazer, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the ancestral houses of the Israelite tribes, 2 and spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, as follows: “The LORD commanded through Moses that we be given towns to live in, along with their pastures for our livestock.” 3 So the Israelites, in accordance with the LORD’S command, assigned to the Levites, out of their own portions, the following towns with their pastures:
Josh 21:4 The [first] lot among the Levites fell to the Kohathite clans. To the descendants of the priest Aaron, there fell by lot 13 towns from the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Simeon, and the tribe of Benjamin; 5 and to the remaining Kohathites [there fell] by lot 10 towns from the clans of the tribe of Ephraim, the tribe of Dan, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
Josh 21:6 To the Gershonites [there fell] by lot 13 towns from the clans of the tribe of Issachar, the tribe of Asher, the tribe of Naphtali, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan.
Josh 21:7 [And] to the Merarites, by their clans—12 towns from the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the tribe of Zebulun. 8 The Israelites assigned those towns with their pastures by lot to the Levites—as the LORD had commanded through Moses.
And there we have our answer. Num 4:5 mentioned tasks to be done by “Aaron and his sons”; Josh 21:4 tells us clearly that “the descendants of the priest Aaron” get first pick of whatever goodies there are to be gotten. They are the ones closest to Jerusalem, while the rest of the Kohathites are stuck way up north. As for the Gershonites and the Merarites, they both are given some towns all the way over on the east bank of the Jordan, the ultimate biblical definition of “out of town.”
It’s not, therefore, so surprising after all that Kohath comes first in Numbers 4. He was the grandfather of Moses and Aaron: Aaron, the first high priest, and Moses, the ruler of the Israelites in the desert. What a coincidence that YHWH should decide to give the priesthood, the highest rank among the Levites, to Aaron and his descendants.
That is, in fact, Abarbanel’s explanation (in next week’s reading) for the surprising break between vv. 20–21 in this chapter:
The weekly portion begins with [the Gershonites], as the eldest, restoring to them the honor taken away from them when the most prestigious tasks were given to the Kohathites—which was due to the fact that Moses and Aaron were Kohathites themselves.
Abarbanel had been around the block himself and knew how things work. The Kohathites are given the plum jobs and, along with them, the plum place in this chapter. (We’ll be reading about another Kohathite, a cousin of Moses and Aaron named Korah who didn’t think his own job was plum enough, in a few short weeks.)
Yet I don’t really think his explanation for why the next parashah begins with the Gershonites is enough to explain why this parashah ends where it does. It’s especially unsatisfying — indeed, strange — because at the very end of the parashah we read this (in the NJPS translation):
Num 4:17 The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 18 Do not let the group of Kohathite clans be cut off from the Levites. 19 Do this with them, that they may live and not die when they approach the most sacred objects: let Aaron and his sons go in and assign each of them to his duties and to his porterage. 20 But let not [the Kohathites] go inside and witness the dismantling of the sanctuary, lest they die.
I understand that “being cut off” means death by divine wrath. Still, separating them from their Levite brethren by cutting off the parashah just at this point is a little too similar for my taste — especially when that makes the last word of the parashah וָמֵֽתוּ va-méitu ‘and they shall die’.
There is, after all, a tradition that argues strongly against ending a reading with that kind of negativity. Jewish practice is that the biblical books of Isaiah, Malachi, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations — all of which end with words of ill omen — are not simply left that way. Instead, after that unpleasant last verse, the second-to-last verse of the book is repeated. Yet somehow Parashat Bemidbar ends with “they shall die.”
It pays to be connected. In the Torah just as in our own day, it’s not necessarily what you know but who you know. Yet insisting on flaunting your connections and pushing them to the limit can leave you — as it leaves the Kohathites at the end of this week’s parashah — with some seriously bad karma.
I too, following synagogue practice, will regrettably have to keep the Gershonites and the Merarites in the wings until next week. See you then.
