Shabbat Parashat Beha'alotecha - 5781

Shabbat Parashat Beha'alotecha - 5781

Rabbi Hal Miller

Take the Levites from among the children of Israel and purify them. [Bamidbar 8:6]

What does the Torah mean by the word take? The same word (in varying grammatical

forms) appears in 8:8, "They shall take a young bull and its meal offering, fine flour

mixed with oil, and a second young bull shall you take as a sin offering", in "the

firstborn of everyone of the children of Israel have I taken them to Myself" [8:16], and

"I took the Levites in place of every firstborn among the children of Israel." [8:18] Yet,

the actions involved seem to be different.

Onkelos is bothered by the idea of 'taking' people, and translates the word as "bring

near", although the Hebrew does not support this. Since he always attempts to

translate in ways that avoid anthropomorphism, he claims that it would be improper

to envision God placing hands on the Levites to physically take them anywhere. Further

he sees that kind of physical taking as being disrespectful to the people being taken.

Onkelos also often translates 'kach', which means 'take', as 'bring' for animals, but he

is not consistent in this usage, thus in 8:8 he has people taking bulls for sacrifices.

On our verse, Rashi says, "Take them with words", meaning explaining to the

Levites that they are about to be elevated and privileged to serve God. He does not

explain how this approach should work with the other verses since nobody tried to

convince the bulls to come for slaughter, and God did not speak with the Levites at

the time He appointed them to replace the firstborn.

Torat Kohanim writes that the word usually means taking in a physical way, but when

applied to people it intends persuasion. This explains where Rashi got his view, but

still has the same shortcomings as above.

So what does it mean? Perhaps the Torah is using 'take' in the sense of 'replacement'.

Animal sacrifices are meant to substitute for sacrificing humans who have some

obligation to be sacrificed. The Levites became substitutes in God's ledger in place

of the firstborns at Sinai. Our verse tells Moshe to remove the Levites from being

part of the rest of the nation to replace the people themselves as dedicated servants

to God. The animal replacement allows the human to go on about his business, the

Levites dedicated to God allow the firstborn to go back to a 'regular' status, and now

Moshe is using those same Levites to allow the entire nation to go about their regular

activities. This definition fits with all four verses, and avoids all the problems of the

other explanations. One of the uses of the word lakach is "to appoint", and each of

these verses seems to be designating someone to be something.