Some Job

By Rabbi Joshua (busily known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

After the Levites are chosen to replace the first born in performing the service in the mishkan, and assigned their various tasks, the Torah tells us that the Jewish people brought the Pesach sacrifice. Actually, this event should have been recorded at the beginning of the book, since it occurred on the fourteenth of Nissan, while the census which begins the book of Bamidbar did not take place until the beginning of the following month. However, since, as we will see, the recording of that particular Pesach sacrifice implied a certain shortcoming of the Jewish nation, it was not appropriate to begin the book with its mention. Rabbi Yosef Salant in his Be'er Yosef, points out that this section on the Pesach sacrifice, although out of place chronologically, is in its proper place logically, because the Torah here instructs the kohanim, from the tribe of Levi, to perform the necessary service required for bringing the korban Pesach immediately after recording the replacement of the firstborn by the tribe of Levi. Until the tribe of Levi was chosen, this service was done by he firstborn of each tribe. Moreover, the Pesach sacrifice is brought as a commemoration of the fact that, on the night of Pesach, God bypassed the homes of the Jewish firstborn and only slaid the Egyptian firstborn, so that it would seem fitting that the firstborn should be the ones to perform this mitzvah. Still, once the service of the sacrifices was given over from the firstborn to the tribe of Levi , it was the kohanim, of the tribe of Levi, who were to bring the Pesach sacrifice, as well.

Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, in his Meshech Chochmah, points out another interesting factor involved in the korban Pesach that was brought in the wilderness. At that time, he says, there were only three kohanim among th erJewish people- aharon and his remaining two sons, elazar and Isamar, since his other two sons, Nadav and Avihu, died after bringing a strange fire on the altar. Six hundred thousand males, who were over the age of twenty, needed to bring the Pesach sacrifice, and according to one opinion on the Talmud the same amount of women were always obligated. There were thus only three kohanim there to bring many tens of thousands of Pesach sacrifices, and only from midday until night time. This can only have been accomplished through a miracle. The midrash says that Aharon was able to waive the 22,000 Levites through a miracle, but the ability of three kohanim to bring so many Pesach sacrifices in such a short time was certainly an even greater miracle. Perhaps the miraculous nature of the Pesach sacrifice in th ewilderness is additional reason for the Torah mentioning thiat sacrifice at this point, after the choice of the tribe of Levi, rather `than at the beginning of the book of Bamidbar, where it was more fitting to mention from a chronological point of view. The heightened status of this tribe, as brought out in its choice to replace the firstborn. The miracle involved can also help explain something that the Talmud points out about the Pesach sacrifice described in our parsha.

The Talmud tells us that the Pesach sacrifice described in our parsha constituted the only one that was brought during the entire sojourn of the nation in the wilderness. This is because the people did not circumcize their children or their servants, and the Pesach could not be brought under such circumstances. The resin they did not perform bris milah is that the clouds of glory blocked the healing rays of the sun, and the North wind, which wood have dispersed the clouds, did not blow for the populi after they sinned. according to Ramban , this sin refers to the sin of the spies, as record in next week's parsha , Shelach. With Rav Meir Simcha's observation about the miraculous nature of the Pesach sacrifice in the wilderness, we can suggest that the reason God did not have the north wind blow for the nation was precisely to prevent the Pesach sacrifice from being brought. since bringing it would have required a great miracle, which would have been a further testimony to God's presence in the camp, that would only happen when the nation was sufficiently close to God to warrant it. since they had sinned by accepting the report of the spies, which constituted acceptance of leshon hora, or evil talk, they weren't worthy of that heightened state of God's presence among them, even though there were other ways in which he demonstrated His presence over the course of the years that they were in ht e wilderness, such as the daily provision of the mannah.

We saw last week that, according to the Ramban, the test of the sotah, the suspected wayward wife, operand through a miracle, and God provided that miracle only a s long as the vast majority of the nation lived holy lives, and the few cases of testing a suspected sotah were necessary to maintain hat level of holiness. Once the instances of infidelity increased, they were no longer on a level of holiness that warranted such a miracle. So, too, in regard to the korban Pesach in the wilderness, the people merited the miracle that was involved in bringing the sacrifice only as long as they maintained a close connection with God. Once they sinned by accepting leshon hora concerning the Holy Land, they became estranged from God, and no longer merited a miracle of that magnitude.