Shabbos Parashas Bamidbar - 5775

Shabbos Parashas Bamidbar - 5775

Rabbi Hal Miller

These are the offspring of Aharon and Moshe on the day Hashem spoke with Moshe

at Mount Sinai. [Bamidbar 3:1]

Chapter 2 of the book of Bamidbar is about the census and they layout of the camp.

Chapter 3 is about counting the Levites. But at the very beginning of this chapter is a

four-verse section that does not seem to connect to either, nor to bridge a gap. More,

after announcing that it is going to list for us the offspring/children/generations of

Aharon and Moshe, it follows by discussing ONLY the sons of Aharon. What happened

to Moshe's family? What is the Torah teaching us by naming only Aharon's sons?

We could explain that the inclusion of this four-verse section in Chapter 3 is nothing to

be concerned about, since the division of the Torah into chapters was done by non-Jews

much later in time. But that does not explain why these verses are here nor what they

mean.

We could explain that Aharon's sons, as the priests for the nation, were of great

importance and required a special call-out in the process of the national census, while

Moshe's sons, humble members of the Levite clan, were included in the count of the

Levites, upcoming in verse 19. Abarbanel has a take-off on this approach when he

says that Moshe's sons lacked stature, or even lacked age, being under twenty at the

time, although other commentators then ask how they would be included in verse 19.

Rav Hirsch says that this shows how humble Moshe really was, that he refused any

form of famliy dynasty by putting his own descendants in with the crowd.

The Gemora in Sanhedrin [19b] addresses this question. It lists a number of cases

where children were attributed to a person who was not their biological parent, concluding

our verse here. It gives an explanation of the merit of the non-biological assigned parent

in each case. After our verse, it says:

R'Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of R'Yonasan: Whoever teaches Torah to the

son of his fellow is regarded by Scripture as if he had fathered him. For it is stated, "These

are the progeny of Aharon and Moshe" but it is written, "These are the names of the sons

of Aharon" to tell you that Aharon fathered these, Moshe taught them Torah, therefore they

are identified as Moshe's.

Rashi cites this Gemora as the resolution.

We see this in everyday life. The halachas about honoring one's rebbe, even in the presence

of one's parents, are an example. Pirkei Avos [6:3] tells us to respect anyone who teaches

us any amount of Torah, even a single letter, and King David demonstrated this in his

dealing with an enemy who had managed to teach David a lesson at one point. This is not

limited to the text, as a single letter is obviously not sufficient to mean anything. It refers to

teaching a Torah way of life. May we all teach each other, and even more importantly,

learn from each other.