Naso: Chieftains of a Community
Last week, we spoke about the division of the Levites by clan and by activity. While the entire Levite population was tasked with taking care of the mishkan, the specific work was split up. The Levite divisions of Gershon and Merari carried the mishkan’s materials on the backs of animals and wagons, while the division of Kehat carried the materials on their shoulders.
Sefer Bamidbar continues this week with specific instructions and information about these three Levite divisions.
וַיִּפְקֹ֨ד מֹשֶׁ֧ה וְאַהֲרֹ֛ן וּנְשִׂיאֵ֥י הָעֵדָ֖ה אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י הַקְּהָתִ֑י לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם וּלְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָֽם׃
And Moses, and Aaron and the chieftains of the community with him, reckoned the Kohathites by their clans by their fathers’ houses. (Bamidbar 4:34)
As we’ve seen multiple times, the Meshech Chochma pays close attention to the Torah’s word choice and helps us notice a moment of foreshadowing.
ויפקוד כו' ונשיאי העדה. לא כתב כאשר בפ' במדבר ולהלן נשיאי ישראל, דמרמז דקרבתם לבני קהת, המה קרח, גרם להם שיהיו מעדתו אשר נאמר עליהם נשיאי עדה. יעוין רש"י בפ' קרח.
And Moshe, and Aharon and the chieftains of the community with him reckoned. It doesn’t say it in the same way it did in parshat Bamidbar (Bamidbar 1:44) and later on (Bamidbar 4:46), “the chieftains of Israel,” which indicates that they came close to the sons of Kehat--who are the followers of Korach--which caused them to be part of his band, who are called “chieftains of the community” (Bamidbar 16:2). See Rashi at the beginning of parshat Korach.
The phrase nesiei yisrael, the chieftains of Israel, is used in two different places in the first four chapters of Bamidbar. Here, though, in our verse, the phrase used is nesiei ha’edah, chieftains of the community. Why, asks the Meshech Chochma, the change in wording?
The Meshech Chochma suggests that this change indicates to us that the group helping Moshe and Aharon, the chieftains, came close to and joined together with the band of Korach, who in just a few weeks’ time will lead a rebellion against Moshe and Aharon.
At the beginning of Korach’s story, as the Torah begins to report the rebellion, it refers to Korach’s community as nesiei ha’edah, chieftains of the community, the very same phrase used here in our verse several chapters earlier. Not only that, but our verse also refers to the Kehatite division of Levites, the very division from which Korach emerges.
This change in phrasing is no accident. When we read “nesiei ha’edah,” the Meshech Chochma wants our antennae to go up and for us to notice both the deviation from the usual nesiei yisrael formula and the parallel to the later use of nesiei ha’edah by the story of Korach’s rebellion.
The suggestion is that these chieftains who are helping Moshe and Aharon will later separate themselves from those two brothers and from Yisrael as a community. For this reason, they become no longer chieftains of Yisrael, but instead chieftains of Korach’s band of rebels only.
This comment, aside from its exegetical origin with the difference in word choice, also seems to me to be part of a grander project connecting all of Sefer Bamidbar.
Korach’s rebellion begins in the 16th chapter at essentially the midway point of Bamidbar. That narrative is among the most defining moments of the book and arguably among the most harrowing and consequential of the entire Torah.
By alerting us to a connection already here in the fourth chapter, I think the Meshech Chochma is helping us see the tension around Korach as part of a larger unfolding drama, one that centers Levite difference and communal belonging.
This sefer, Bamidbar, means “in the wilderness.” As the Israelites traverse that wilderness, the space between Egypt and the promised land, the lines and definitions of belonging to the congregation are being formed. Edah here in our verse does not just mean "community,” it means “Korach’s community.” These chieftains, as well as those who joined with Korach and those who didn’t, had to decide exactly which community they would be a part of.
As we read through the rest of Sefer Bamidbar, we will continue to face questions of identity and belonging. The Meshech Chochma is priming us to think about these questions, to see in the words of the Torah hints and signals at the fraying and meshing of the Israelite community.
It may seem difficult to connect a census or the enumeration of different tasks to the more dramatic tension between Moshe, Aharon, and their cousins. The divisions among Levites and questions about the rightful leaders of the wandering Israelites do not arise suddenly in the 16th chapter. They’ve been bubbling all along.