The fourth of the hamisha humshei Torah, of which ours is the leading parasha, is called in the Talmud Humash ha-Piqqudim because of the two censuses which bracket the book (סוטה ל"ו). Presumably this also underlies the Greek name of the book, ’Aριθμοί, of which the English name “Numbers ” is the translation. The first of these censuses begins in our parasha.
On completion of the census of eleven of the twelve tribes, we read: והלויים לא התפקדו בתוך בני ישראל כאשר צוה ד' את משה (“And the Lëviyyim were not counted amongst the bënei Yisra’él as Ha-Shem had commanded Moshe”; II, 33). The Lëviyyim were to be counted separately from the others due to their dedication to special duties in the service of the Mishkan.
The census of the Lëviyyim begins: ואלה תולדת אהרן ומשה ביום דבר ד' את משה בהר סיני: ואלה שמות בני אהרן הבכר נדב ואביהוא אלעזר ואיתמר: (“And these are the offspring [toladoth] of Aharon and Moshe on the day Ha-Shem spoke with Moshe on Mt. Sinai, And these are the names of Aharon’s sons: The first-born was Nadav, and Avihu’, El‘azar and Ithamar”; III, 1-2).
Though the text details Aharon’s progeny, Moshe’s sons Gershom and Eli‘ezer are conspicuously absent from the passage. Their absence appears especially odd, since they are explicitly included elsewhere: ומשה איש האלקים בניו יקראו על שבט הלוי (“And the sons of Moshe, the man of G-d, were called out on [the rolls of] the tribe of Lévi”; II Chronicles XXIII, 14). Why, then, do they go unmentioned here?
B.
The question clearly bothered Rashi, who sought an answer in the Talmud (סנהדרין י"ט:). As he summarizes it: ואינו מזכיר אלא בני אהרן ונקראו תולדות משה לפי שלמדן תורה מלמד שכל המלמד את בן חבירו תורה מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו ילדו (“And it only mentions Aharon’s sons, and they are called Moshe’s offspring because he taught them Torah, teaching that anyone who teaches his fellow’s son Torah, Scripture considers it as though he gave birth to him”).
The thought is sublimely beautiful, and Hazal appear to echo it again and again, for instance in the Sifrei’s comment on Deuteronomy VI, 7: "ושננתם לבמיך" אלו תלמידיך וכן אתה מוצא בכל מקום שהתלמידים קרויים בנים שנאמר "בנים אתם לד' אלקיכם" (“‘And you will teach them to your sons’; these are your students, and so you find in every place that students are called sons, as it is said, ‘You are sons of Ha-Shem your G-d’ [ibid.]”), adducing in evidence such examples as the phrase בני הנביאים used in reference to the students of the prophets (in, e.g., II Kings II, 3), or King Hizqiyahu’s Torah revival and consequent reference to the Lëviyyim who were to carry it out as his “sons” (II Chronicles XXIX, 11}, as well as the converse, that the teacher is called the student’s father, as in, e.g., Elisha‘’s reference to Eliyahu (II Kings II, 12), or King Yo’ash of Israel’s subsequent reference to Elisha‘ himself (ibid., XIII, 14; ספרי פר' ואתחנן פיסקא ט').
Indeed, Rabbi Baruch ha-Lévi Epstein, in his Torah Tëmima, traces the latter concept all the way back to the beginning of time; we find, for instance, that the Torah calls Yaval אבי כל טיושב אהל ומקנה (“father of all tent-dwellers [with] livestock”), and his brother Yuval אבי כל תופש כנור ועוגב (“father of all who grasp lyre and organ”; Genesis IV, 20-21), in other words, the originators of these arts who taught the requisite skills to others.
But with all of that, it remains the case that Moshe taught Torah to all of këlal Yisra’él, his own sons surely amongst them. The question becomes even stronger: Why are they excluded, and the sons of Aharon so prominently listed?
The Nëtziv (Rabbi Naftali Tzëvi Yëhuda Berlin of Volozhin) offers a suggestion in his Ha‘améq Davar: The teaching of Torah being discussed here is, he says, not merely the imparting of the bare facts of halacha lë-ma‘aseh, “practical halacha,” but rather is concerned בחכמת התלמוד שנעשה עפ"י זה ברי' חדשה כדאיתא עוד בסנהדרין דצ"ט המעשה את חבירו לד"ת מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו עשאו וכו' וכו' ובמדבר לא הרבה חכמו עוד בחכמת התלמוד עד שבאו לעה"י שם באר את התורה לפני כל ישראל כו' אבל במדבר היו בני אהרן המיוחדים בזה מש"ה נחשבו המה תולדות משה (“with the hochmath ha-talmud, through which one is made a new creature, as it is also brought in Sanhedrin 99[b], ‘Anyone who compels his fellow to [learn] words of Torah, Scripture considers him as though he has made him’... And in the dessert [the bënei Yisra-‘él] did not very much engage the hochmath ha-talmud until they arrived at the bank of the Jordan, where [Moshe] explicated the Torah before all of Israel... but in the desert, the bënei Aharon were the ones especially involved in this; for this reason, they were considered Moshe’s toladoth”).
The Nëtziv means by hochmath ha-talmud what is often referred to as “learning how to learn,” the application of the rules of Talmudic logic to ascertain the correct meanings and applications of verses in the written Torah, to tease out their implications and derivations. Understandably, the generation in the desert was primarily concerned with halacha lë-ma‘aseh, since all of the halachoth were new and for a long time nobody but Moshe truly knew what he was doing. It was only afterward, after a generation had come into being on the eve of Israel’s invasion of the Holy Land who had grown up with Torah, for whom halacha was second nature, simply “part of the culture”, that serious learning by the larger mass of the nation could be contemplated. Hence, the hochmath ha-talmud in the desert was the occupation only of certain yëhidei sëgula, certain unique individuals, and in the forefront of that select group were the bënei Aharon.
C.
The transformative power of serious Torah learning cited above by the Nëtziv is most certainly a reality, and none could be better equipped to attest to it than Réysh Laqish, the author of the statement from Sanhedrin which the Nëtziv quotes. As we learn elsewhere in the Talmud (בבא מציעא פ"ד: ) he was, to quote the Torah Tëmima again, an איש גס והמוני מאד (“very coarse member of the masses”; he was in fact leader of a band of bandits), until he began to learn under the influence of Rabbi Yohanan, who saw the potential in him. Truly, Réysh Laqish was a “new creature” from what he had been before.
If we take a more careful look at both Talmudic passages which have been cited above, though, something else catches the eye. The first passage, which Rashi had cited, uses the verb yëlado, “he gave birth to him.” This is most emphatically not the usual verb refer-ring to the fathering or siring of children; that word, used dozens of times in the Torah, is holid, the causative form; because the father is molid, the mother is ordinarily yoledeth.
Réysh Laqish’s statement is similarly forceful. The word which I have poorly translated “compel” above, ‘issa, is literally untranslatable into English. The factitive, pi‘él form of the same root as ‘asa’o, “he made him,” it really means something like “bring into being, initiate a process by which something is made,” so that the sentence implies that one is creating the mental and spiritual infrastructure, making one’s comrade ready and able to learn Torah; it is that which Scripture considers kë-illu ‘asa’o, “as if he had made him.”
Taking the two together, then, we see that Hazal are making a much stronger statement than the simple assertion that a teacher is like a father; rather, a teacher who transmits the Torah’s transformative power stands in place of both parents; it is as though he has given birth to the new creature, made him completely (rather than “merely” contributing the father’s part of the child’s legacy), to emphasize which, in my humble opinion, the Torah deliberately uses the word toladoth, also from the root yud-lamed-dalet, rather than the more prosaic banim (as in the second verse, with Aharon).
Any teacher who teaches a student anything on any level, certainly to include the simplest hora’ath halacha – do this, don’t do that – is acting like a father, and guiding his student, who is in this sense like a son. The rebbe who teaches him how to learn, who makes it possible for him to access the true power of Torah, is doing much more, and stands in loco duorum parentium, in place of both parents.
D.
Rabbi Moshe Yëhi’él ha-Lévi Epstein, the previous Ozherover Rebbe, offers a fascinating perspective on the Torah’s deliberate exclusion of Moshe’s sons from our passage, which throws light on the tremendous personal sacrifice Moshe made to teach Torah to Israel. The oddities concerning Moshe and his sons are not unique to our parasha.
He cites an observation of the Maharal mi-Prag in his Gur Aryeh on Exodus II, 1, וילך איש מבית לוי ויקח בת לוי (“And a man from the house of Lévi went and married a daughter of Lévi”), שנכתב בהעלם ולא נזכר שמם של אבי משה ואמו בגלל היות משה רבינו מתוקן לגאולה ואין לו כל קשר עמם (“that it is written in a concealed fashion and does not mention the names of Moshe’s father and mother, because Moshe was brought into the world to [secure Israel’s] redemption, and so was unconnected to [his parents]”).
He then notes a comment of the holy Zohar on a very peculiar turn of phrase in Exodus XVIII, 2 where we learn that Tzippora came from Midyan to join the camp with “her two sons”: "ואת שני בני' " בני' ולא בניו של משה אלא וכו' מלה דקשוט בני' ודאי (“‘and her two sons’ – her sons and not Moshe’s sons, but... it is a true word, [they were] certainly her sons”; ח"ב ס"ט:) here again emphasizing the distance imposed by Moshe’s unique, historic rôle as the teacher of all Israel, hence less able to be fully involved as the father of his sons.
Even II Chronicles XXIII, 14, by insisting on the phrase ומשה איש האלקים (“And Moshe, the man of G-d”) by emphasizing his historic rôle, and the consequent, if sad, distance from his own children. His sons would indeed take their place amongst the tribe of Lévi, but would not be called specifically by their father’s name.
The message of the transformative nature of Torah, which one accesses by learning how to learn, and then diligently employing that knowledge with commitment and intent, is one most suited to the present season, as we enter the month of Sivan and are on the cusp of the holiday of Mattan Torah. The great, almost superhuman, personal sacrifice which Moshe rabbeinu made to bequeath it to us should serve to make it even more precious, and strengthen our resolve to put it into practice.
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