Bamidbar: Melacha, Avodah, and the Levites
This week, we begin reading the fourth book of the Torah: Sefer Bamidbar (the Book of Numbers). In this parsha, Moshe is tasked by God to take a census of the people. But, however, he is not to include the Levites (of which he is one) in the count. Instead,
וְאַתָּ֡ה הַפְקֵ֣ד אֶת־הַלְוִיִּם֩ עַל־מִשְׁכַּ֨ן הָעֵדֻ֜ת וְעַ֣ל כָּל־כֵּלָיו֮ וְעַ֣ל כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לוֹ֒ הֵ֜מָּה יִשְׂא֤וּ אֶת־הַמִּשְׁכָּן֙ וְאֶת־כָּל־כֵּלָ֔יו וְהֵ֖ם יְשָׁרְתֻ֑הוּ וְסָבִ֥יב לַמִּשְׁכָּ֖ן יַחֲנֽוּ׃
And you, make the Levites reckon with the Tabernacle of the Covenant and with all its furnishings and with all that belongs to it. They it is who shall bear the mishkan and all its furnishings, and they shall serve it, and around the mishkan they shall camp. (Bamidbar 1:50)
The Levites have a different purpose. They are to be in charge of the mishkan when the Israelites have made camp, and are also tasked with transporting the mishkan materials from place to place as the Israelites make their way through the wilderness.
Within the Levites, there are four divisions. The first is the kohanim, and then there is one clan each for the descendants of Levi’s three sons: Gershon, Kehat, and Merari. These final three divisions of Levites in particular would be responsible for the upkeep of the mishkan, and our parsha describes the kinds of activity that each clan would perform.
In Bamidbar 4:3, we learn
מִבֶּ֨ן שְׁלֹשִׁ֤ים שָׁנָה֙ וָמַ֔עְלָה וְעַ֖ד בֶּן־חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים שָׁנָ֑ה כָּל־בָּא֙ לַצָּבָ֔א לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת מְלָאכָ֖ה בְּאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵֽד׃
From thirty years old up till fifty years old, all who come to the army to do the task in the Tent of Meeting.
The word for “task” here is melacha, which we’ve looked at a few times in the past few months.1 Melacha refers to general work, but also refers more specifically to prohibited labors on Shabbat, which is the context in which the Meshech Chochma will comment.
כל בא לצבא לעשות מלאכה באהמ"ע. הנה בבני קהת כתיב מלאכה, ובבני גרשון ומררי לא כתיב מלאכה משום, שהיו נושאין ע"ג בהמות העגלות והבקרים, ולא היה כאן רק מחמר בעת המסע, דאינה מלאכה, דגבי שבת לא חייב בה רק מלקות. יעוין שבת קנ"ד בזה. אבל בני קהת היו נושאין בכתף, דהוי הוצאה מלאכה חשובה וגמורה. ודו"ק.
All who come to the army to do the task in the Tent of Meeting. Here, with regard to the sons of Kehat, it is written melacha. But with regard to the sons of Gershon and Merari it does not say melacha, since [the sons of Gershon and Merari] would carry [the Temple materials] on top of animals, wagons, and the flock, and this is only mechamer, which is not a melacha [of Shabbat], for with regard to Shabbat one is only liable for lashes [and not the bringing of a sacrifice or the death penalty]. See BT Shabbat 154 on this. But, the sons of Kehat would carry [Temple materials] on their shoulder, which is hotza’ah, which is important and is completely melacha.
Before proceeding with the Meshech Chochma’s analysis, it’s important to return to the topic of prohibited labors on Shabbat. In the laws of Shabbat, there are 39 prohibited labors which are called av melachot. However, there are also prohibited activities that are beyond those 39 listed in Mishnah Shabbat 7:2.
One of the activities which falls outside of the 39 melachot is mechamer, any action that causes an animal to carry a load on Shabbat. Rava, a fourth-century CE rabbinic leader, learns out this prohibition from Shemot 20:10, which prohibits both humans and animals alike from performing melacha on Shabbat.
Now, let’s return to our verse and what the Meshech Chochma does with it. In describing the work of the Kehatite division of the Levites, the Torah uses the word melacha. However, the Meshech Chochma notices that when the Torah describes the work of the other Levite divisions, namely the divisions of Gershon and Merari, it does not use the word melacha. Instead, it uses avodah,2 another word for work, but one that does not have the same association with the 39 enumerated prohibitions of Shabbat.
There is good reason for this, says the Meshech Chochma, based upon the specific type of work that these clans did in the mishkan.
The divisions of Gershon and Merari carried the Temple materials on the backs of animals and wagons (Bamidbar 7:7-8). This type of work would be classified as a prohibited type of work on Shabbat (mechamer) but it is not classified as melacha, since it is not on the list of 39. The Kehatites, on the other hand, carried the Temple materials on their shoulders (Bamidbar 7:9), which would fall under the av melacha of hotza’ah (carrying). Hotza’ah is, as the Meshech Chochma describes it, a full and complete melacha. This one is undoubtedly on the list of 39.
For this reason, the Torah used different words to refer to the work of these respective Levite divisions. It used the word melacha to signal to us the specific type of work that the division of Kehat performed, but then exchanged the word melacha for avodah when referring to the work of Gershon and Merari, that which is not melacha (though it is still forbidden on Shabbat).
On a surface level, the Meshech Chochma is solving an exegetical problem. Why would the Torah use two different words to explain roughly the same activity? Along the way, though, we learn that the activity is in fact not the same, both in a physical sense (on shoulders or on animals) and in a religious sense (melacha or not a melacha). In addition to answering the original question, the Meshech Chochma also helps us read the Torah more precisely, both noticing the two different words and also noticing two different forms of labor.
It’s this exercise in close reading that I think is one of the more remarkable projects of the Meshech Chochma. He brings together disparate verses to help form a cleaner reading of the text by addressing words that seem odd or out-of-place, and he inserts concepts from elsewhere in Jewish literature which inform and are informed by the text of the Torah. At the end of the day, he is helping us see that each word in the Torah is purposeful, and each gives us room to better understand the natural flow from what the Torah tells us to what we can learn from it. Shabbat shalom.
In parshat Acharei Mot and parshat Emor
Bamidbar 3:36 and 4:41