Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Bamidbar 2

every tribe had a flag and the flag was unique in color and the symbol that was uh on it it was either an animal or some object that that would describe the tribe those who encamp to the front at the East shall be the banner of the camp of Yehuda so on the East we have the tribe of Yehuda at the head of the three tribes and together with him are his so on the East we have Yehuda is but they're all called the banner the flag of Yehuda now verse now the total for all three tribes is given and that is 186 and 400. we turn to page 735 the south southern part the side of the Tabernacle it's called the banner of the camp of ruven and together with him we have ruven Shimon and God ruven is the leader of the southern side and the total for them is 151 450. now verse 17 what's in the middle the tenth of meeting and the camp of the Levites shall journey in the middle of the camp okay now Verse 18 the western side the banner of the camp of Ephraim and on that side we have Ephraim minase and binyamin and the which are all the sons of Rahel and the total is given for them and that is 108 000 and 100. and now the northern side the banner of the camp of Don and on the north we have three tribes done Asher in naftali with Don being their leader and the total is given in verse 30. 000 and 600. now we turn to page 737. chapter three now we speak about uh the kohanim and Levine these are The Offspring of aharon and Moshe on the day Hashem spoke with Moshe at Mount Sinai these are the names of the sons of Aaron nadav who died Minister during the lifetime of haronte father verse 5 Hashem spoke to Moshe saying bring near the tribe of Levy and have it stand before Aron de kohen and they shall serve him so the tribe of Levy has to be subservient to the kohanim they shall Safeguard his charge his command and the charge of the entire assembly before the tent of meeting to perform the server service of the Tabernacle now turn to page 739 verse 9 you shall present the Levites to Aron and his sons you shall appoint and his sons and they shall Safeguard their priesthood and the alien anyone who is not a Cohen who approaches will die now verse 11 we read about Levites since they are doing the job in the Tabernacle instead of the Jewish people who really were supposed to serve in the Tabernacle also every family had to give up their firstborn to be the priest now the Levites are replacing the firstborn Hashem spoke to Moshe saying behold I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel in place of every firstborn for every firstborn is mine on the day I struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt I Sanctified every firstborn in Israel for myself from man to Beast they shall be mine I am Hashem so here we learned that um the the tribe of Levy had to redeem the Jewish people the firstborn of people and animals every levite man every Levy replaced one firstborn and not all animals needed to be redeemed but only donkeys and one um sheep could redeem um many donkeys okay therefore we need to First have the senses of the Levites and then we will compare that to the number of the firstborn of the Jewish people and we'll see if there is enough Hashem spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai saying verse 15 count the sons of Levy according to their father's household every male from one month of age and up shall you count them and here surprisingly the Levites are not counted from 20 years of age rather the Levites are counted from one month of age and the simple answer to this surprise is because for the Jewish people we counted abled by abled-bodied man who could fight in the army but for the Levites they're not going to fight an army so we count every male but under uh one month of age the the baby we're not sure if he will survive so we wait 30 days first and only then we count him as a member of the nation and that is why also the pidgeona Ben Redemption of the firstborn happens after 30 days to make sure that the baby is healthy now verse 17. these were the sons of Levy Gershon kehat and mirari Levi had three sons so we will count each one separately sons of Gershon living in shimmy sons of kehat isiel now on page 741 we count the family of Gershon and their count was seven hundred seven thousand five hundred males and they uh encamped on the west of the Tabernacle kehat their total number of males is eight thousand six hundred and they encamped on the south mirari had 6200 men and they encamped on the North in verse 32 tells us about the leader of the levite leaders was elazar son of Aaron the kohen now we turn to page 743 um to the east before the 10th of meeting were Moshe aharon and his sons by the entrance to the the Tabernacle Moshe with his family are on with his family and his two sons with their families now if we make the count of um we're gonna find 22 and 300 levite males 22 300. however um in verse 39 it says all the countings of the Levites every male from one month of agent up were 22 000. where's the extra 300. and the answer is the extra 300 were first born boys and over here we need only the number of Levites who will replace the Jewish people's firstborn but the levite first born are themselves firstborn and therefore they cannot replace uh the Jewish firstborn so we have only 22 000 Levites to work with now let's count how many Jewish first-born males they are verse 40. count every firstborn male of the children of Israel from one month of agent up and take the Levites for me in place of every firstborn of the children of Israel and they did that mosh accounted as Hashem and commanded verse 43 every firstborn male according to the number of their names from one month of agent up according to their numbers was 22 273. 22 273 now there are 273 more first born Jews then the total number of Levites verse 4 44 Hashem spoke to Moshe saying take the Levites in place of every firstborn of the children of Israel and the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock and the levite shall be mine I am Hashem and as for the redemptions of the 273 of the firstborn of the children of Israel who are in excess of the Levites what should we do with them Hashem says verse 47 you shall take five shekels each according to the head count in a sacred shackle and you shall give the money to Aaron and his sons as Redemption of the additional ones among them just like nowadays we redeem our firstborn boy from the Quran for five silver coins that's what those uh first-born males had to do because they were not enough Levites now the question is how do you select 273 people out of 2 to 22 273. anyone that you approach and say oh you're extra pay five coins he'll say why extra I'm part of the original 22 000. ask someone else so Moshe invented the system he took 2000 22 273 pieces of parchment and on 22 000 of them he wrote Levy Ben Levy and on 273 he wrote five coins five shekel and he took all these parchment pieces mix them up and all the firstborn Jews had to go and pick out one and if the one that they picked out had said Ben levy on it they were free to go because they were Redeemed by a levy but those 273 that picked out five coins parchment they had to pay because they were selected by Lottery now verse 49 Moshe took the money of the Redemption from those who were in excess of the redemptions of the Levites and the total money was 1 365 shekels because if you multiply 273 by five you'll get 1 365. oh coins and now on page 745 chapter 4 we learned about the responsibilities of the children of kehat the family of kihad one of the three families of Levites Hashem spoke to motion Aaron saying verse 3 from 30 years of age and up until 50 years of age everyone who comes to the legion to perform work in the tent of meaning count them so now additionally we now need to count the Levites from 30 to 50 years old before we counted them from one month until and up now we're counting from only 30 to 50. here we learned that all the Levites of that age between 30 and 50 did actual work in the temple if they were younger or older they could help out but they couldn't do the main jobs and that is because a man is the strongest between the ages of 30 and 50. foreign this is the work of the sons of kehat first oh the most holy when the camp is to Journey aharon and his sons shall come into the Tabernacle take down the partition curtain and the cover the golden cover of the Ark of the test testimony I'm sorry the art the cover of the Ark of the testimony is the second partition because the Tabernacle had two partitions one to the entrance of the Holy and the second one to the entrance of the holy of holies and they shall cover it in a special tahash hide covering and spread a cloth entirely of turquoise wool over it um so what they did was they would take the the curtain put it over the ark and then put a second layer off uh leather made from tahash hide over it and then to put a third layer of blue wool garment over it so that when the um when the Levites carry it they should not touch and should not see the holy utensils and then verse 7 describes the same procedure for um the table the shoehan that they would cover it this time only with blue wool and then put on top um red wool and then cover it with tahash hide verse 9 speaks about how they would wrap the menorah they would wrap it with blue wool and then cover it with tahash hide it would only have two covers now on page 747. verse 11 describes how they would wrap the golden altar they would cover it first with blue wool and then with takash hide they would take separately the utensils of the Tabernacle and cover them also with blue wool and then tahash skin then they will take they would take the outer altar and spread purple wool cloth over it and then cover it with um High verse 15. and his sons shall finish covering the holy utensils when the camp Journeys and then the sons of kehat shall come to carry so that they not touch the sanctuary whatever is Holy and die these are the bur burden of the sons of kehat in the tent of meaning verse 16 describes the duties of elazar son of aharon the charge of al-azhar son of our own the kohen is the oil of Illumination the incense spices the ketoret the meal offering of the continual offering the minha and the anointment oil and plus he's in charge of all other managers the charge of the entire Tabernacle and everything in it in the last paragraph we learned about the special precautions for the children of kehat again they would carry the most holy objects and they were not allowed to touch them directly or see them Hashem spoke to motion are unsane do not let the tribe of families be cut off from among the Levites thus shall you do for them so that they shall live and not die when they approach the holy of holies and his sons shall come and assign them every man to his work and his burden but they the children of kihad shall not come and look as the holy utensils are inserted into their coverings lest they die this concludes parashat bamidbar um now let me address some of the questions that were asked on the chat um okay someone is asking if someone asks us how much we earn we said that it's better not to brag not to hurt anyone and if you can get away with it lower your accomplishments diminish them and say you're earning less so someone's asking um but isn't it dangerous that if you say that you're earning less Hashem will say oh you're saying you're earning less so I'm gonna give you less and that is not a danger because you know that you are doing it for a good reason you're doing it in order to protect the person from jealousy you're doing it in order to protect yourself from Aina you're doing it in order to protect yourself from the danger of arrogance look at me I'm earning so much and therefore since you have good intentions you will be protected now someone is asking are we allowed to be proud of our accomplishments if Hashem controls our success that's a very good question and the answer is of course not we can feel good and and thank Hashem for giving us the opportunity to have such successes but we cannot be proud and arrogant um because of our successes we have to be humble thank Hashem for the good fortune and realize that it's only up to Hashem that we got it not because our all because of our own efforts we can put the same effort into it and Achieve less and we can put the same effort into it and achieve more and in fact there are many doctors in the world and some are more wealthy and some are less wealthy not because one is a better businessman or a better doctor you can have a good doctor earning less maybe he's more honest or you can have many lawyers some earn a lot some not so much businessmen in every area you have people who are wealthy and not so wealthy so it's not your education not your effort not your wisdom that gives you the the final result um now how does that fit fit with free will and again our free will is to choose what is the right uh thing to choose that's it I'm choosing this our Free Will is not to accomplish it we have to choose it commit to it and try it try to do it the result is going to be up to Hashem not only that it says a person cannot lift up his finger without Hashem allowing it um which means when I'm putting my effort in and that's um we'll answer the next question why do we need to put in effort if Hashem determines our success when I'm putting in the effort whose energy am I using I'm not using my own energy because I don't have energy all I have is the soul that's put into my body Hashem created the body Hashem gives energy to the body Hashem gives ability to my muscles to function and all I really am is a thought in God's mind and my soul can desire to do something and God has to give his stamp of approval for me to be able to pick up my finger therefore when I'm putting that effort and I feel my muscles bulging and I feel exhausted we should not get scared because the energy is not mine in fact when a person is worried or my energy is being used up I'm getting tired he's gonna get tired fast but when the person says no I have to accomplish this great thing I cannot get tired Hashem please give me more energy he gets more energy and he can run for miles and miles and he can work uh from dawn to dusk so where does the energy come from not from the body but rather from Spirit um so at the end of the day from us comes the decision and from Hashem comes the accomplishment um we should all have a happy and healthy Yom Tov of Shavuot Samir and shabbat shalom