Bamidbar - 6th Portion

Join me as we learn kumish for Friday parishes. Yesterday we learned about the tally that was made for the Levite families and the jobs that were given for each one of the Levite families. We concluded by telling us about how the Levites had to redeem each one of the firstborn because initially the firstborn were the ones that had to do the job at the holy temple. The Levites took their place. Today, the Torah continues to tell us how that process was done. Verse 40, God said to Moshe, "Now you're going to count all the firstborn Israelite males amongst the Jewish people from one month old and take a census of their names?" Rashi from how old we mentioned the reason why from 30 days old because then they are no longer considered a question about their uh viability. They're considered a viable child, a child that which is going to sustain itself and therefore they now are considered a child who can be counted. Verse 41, you will then take the Levites to me They will be in the place of all the firstborn amongst the Jewish people as well as you're going to take the the Levites lambs in place of in the place of the all the firstborn donkeys of the Jewish people. Verse 42 and Moshe counted as God told him as God commanded him all the firstborn amongst the Jewish people. Verse 43. And then when you count all and it was all the firstborn males according to their number of names from a month old according to their tally 22,000 22,273. So you have 22,273. As we mentioned previously, of the 22,000, 300 of the 22,300 Levites, 300 were firstborn, as we're going to see, uh, Rashi is going to explain as we get to it, as we mentioned before. So, if we look now, there were 273 more firstborn Israelites than there were Levites that could redeem them. And God spoke to Moshe saying verse 44, you're going to take the Levites in the place of all the Jewish peoples, Israelites firstborns, and you're going to take their the Levites lambs in the place of the Jewish peoples, the Israelites firstborn donkeys, their their animals. And what's going to happen? The Levites will be mine and I am God. Rashi explains what this means with the animals as we'll talk about because as we mentioned it says animals. It doesn't say donkeys. Where do we get that from? We'll see. Rashi tells us as follows. They did not the the animals the lambs of the animals did not work to exempt. They did not work to exempt the animals the which were allowed to be brought on the altar. as what did it what was the lambs of the Levites used for only for the donkeys which were not allowed to brought be brought on the animal as we see one lamb of a Levite was able to redeem many firstborn donkeys of an Israelite the proof of this is because he talks about the leftovers by the the extra people but he doesn't say how many were extra by the animals meaning that because didn't have to be an equal balance. You could have one lamb per many donkeys. The reason why the kosher animals, the kosher animals had to be brought as a sacrifice. The other ones, that's what the Levites redeemed. Verse 46. Remember we mentioned before that there were 273 more firstborn than Levites from the firstborn in excess of the Levites amongst the Jewish people. the firstborns that had to be redeemed because because there were 273 that were extra over the Levite. So therefore they had to be redeemed. Those people had to pay five shekele to be redeemed because this goes back to the way Yoseph was sold. His brother sold him to the which was for Kasa for 20 silver coins. 20 silver coins makes five shekel and therefore which is the value of five shekel was the firstborn of the Jewish people sold them for 20 20 shekel 20 silver coins which is five 20 shekel which is five silver shekel therefore that's what it would cost for a for for a firstborn to be redeemed because they didn't have an exact match there was extra they had to redeem themselves by giving these five shekele as we'll see in verse 46 47 verse 47. You must take five shekel per head. Take them according to what kind of shekele. It has to be the holy shekelear shekele. What is a a holy shekele worth? Holy shekele means a value of 20 g which is 20 pieces of silver which is the amount that the brothers as we mentioned paid to sell Yoseph. Verse 48. Who's going to give they get this money? You'll give this money to the sons. This is a redemption for those who are not who were in the excess of Levites. They are these people are redeeming themselves. Those these Levites that were redeemed by the very sake of having a Levite take their place. But then there were those that didn't have a Levi take their place. They had to pay the five shekele. Verse 49. and Moshe took the money, collected the redemption money from those 273 Israelites where they did not have a Levite to redeem them. So therefore, in excess of those Levites who were already redeemed by the Levites, they did not have to give the money. Verse 50, Moshe took the money from the firstborn of the Israelites. if he took the money totaled 1,365 sacred shekels. So if you take 273 times five gives you the total of 1,365 shekel here is the here's how you get to that tally. You have five shekel per head for 200. So do that math you get to it gives you a,000 shekele. So for 75 * 70 is 350. So I have 1,350ish. So another three. So I have 2,273 is 15. So I have a total of 1,365. Rashi does the breakdown for you. Omar Moshe said, "How am I going to decide? If I go over to firstborn and I tell him, hey, give me five shekel because you're from the excess." He'll tell me, "No, no, no. I'm from the one that matched me." Why do you decide which how do you know which one is considered an extra and which one matched the ley? So, what did he do? He brought 200 and he brought 22,000. He brought 22,000 notes. The amount of leies there are he wrote Ben Ley and then he brought and then he brought another 273 notes. He wrote five shekel. He took them and he mixed them all up and he mixed them. He put them like in a lottery said everybody come and take a note. Now whatever your notes said if you said ley then you match up with the ley. If your notes said five shekel, then you had to pay the five shekel. Verse 51, Moshe took the money and gave the money of the redeemed Israelites to the sons according to the way God commanded him like God commanded Moshe. This concludes the sixth tow reading of parasidbar.