Shnayim Yomi - Behaalotecha - Rishon - #1- Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff - Consecration of the Leviim

Welcome to an incredible way of staying connected to the parasa. We are going to be discussing parasal and the first aliyah reishon is a fascinating aliyah begins of course with bahaloska's haneos aron is commanded to light the minora and then the aliyah begins to describe the construction of the minora exactly what it looked like and exactly how it was constructed. Following that we have the story of the consecration of the levim. The consecration of the levim was a multi-step process. In the beginning the levim were sprinkled with the water mixed with the ashes of the paradum in order to purify them. The levim were then shaved. All of their hair was shaven off. Their clothing was washed. Certain carbonos were brought as part of this process. Then Israel then consecrates the Levim and then interestingly Aaron and Moshe both wave the Levim. That's right. They actually wave them. Kazal tell us they picked them up and this shows the incredible strength of Moshe and Aron that they were able to pick up 22,000 levim and wave the levim. And the question is whatever however we understand this process of waving the levim as part of the consecration of the levim into their avoda. But why exactly was it done twice? Why was Aaron commanded to wave the Levim and then Moshe commanded to wave the Levim? And the Malm offers a fascinating answer. And he says that really this process of waving the Levim had two different purposes to indicate the two different roles that the Levim played. First, Aaron was commanded to wave the Levim to consecrate them as assistants to the Kohanim. We know that throughout their time in the ma miktdash the kohanim were the ones who did the avod and the mea mikdash but the lvim assisted them in their avod that waving was of a koen consecrated the lvim and formalized their roles as the assistance to the kohanim but there was another role that the lvim played and that was not just to assist the kohan but also to represent bin Israel and for that Mosha Rabenu was commanded to wave the levim because Mosha Rabenu who was The ultimate leader of Ben Israel was the one who could wave the Levim and formalize and consecrate them to serve as representatives of Kali Israel.