Parasha: Bamidbar · Aliyah: Sixth (Yesod)

ואת בהמת הלוים, and the animals of the Levites, etc. The Torah speaks of those animals which the firstborn owned and which had been subject to redemption such as the firstborn donkeys. The Torah (Exodus 13,13) legislated that the firstborn pure animals had to be offered as a sacrifice whereas the firstborn donkey (being an unclean animal unfit for the altar) had to be redeemed. Firstborn animals of the pure species which for some reason did not qualify for the altar became the property of their owners and lost any status of sanctity they had had prior to becoming disqualified. We could have assumed therefore that the law of redeeming them did not apply when the swap between the Levites and the firstborn Israelites was made. Hence the Torah had to go on record that firstborn donkeys owned by the firstborn being exchanged for a Levite had to be redeemed.

והיו לי הלוים אני השם, "and the Levites will belong to Me I am the Lord." The reason the Torah added the words "I am the Lord," is to tell us that although according to Yalkut Shimoni 364 there will come a time when the firstborn will once again be performing the priestly functions in the Holy Temple, the Levites will not therefore be demoted and cease to belong to G'd. [I have not foumd a reference in the Yalkut to the firstborn being reinstated as priests in the future. Ed.] The very expression והיו לי indicates that just as G'd's name is eternal so is the appointment of the Levites to their task.

ולקחת חמשת חמשת שקלים, "You shall take 5 shekels apiece, etc." Why did the Torah commence this verse with the conjunctive letter ו before the word לקחת seeing it is part and parcel of the legislation commencing in verse 46 about the redemption of the extra 273 firstborn for whom no equivalent Levites could be found? Perhaps the letter ו alludes to the fact that the money redeeming these 273 people was to come out of the pockets of the firstborn and not out of the pockets of the Levites. You could have reasoned that the process of redemption would be parallel to the redemption of the animals of the Levites when the money for the redemption had to be paid by the Levites. It would have been logical to conclude that the Levites had to pay. To disabuse us of such thinking the Torah had to write מבכור בני ישראל, "from the firstborn of the Israelites" (at the end of verse 46). The Torah spells this out when it came to the actual carrying out of these instructions in verse 50. The Torah describes Moses as taking the redemption money from the firstborn, not from the Levites. In our verse the additional information is the amount of the redemption money per person, i.e. 5 shekels each. The letter ו means that we are dealing with a second commandment. The Torah repeats the word תקח to tell us there is a third commandment i.e. that the five shekels are "holy shekels" worth 20 geyrah each. Every detail mentioned here was an essential part of the procedure.

ויתן משה את כסף הפדויים, Moses gave the redemption money, etc. Seeing that the verse commences by telling us that Moses had given the redemption money to Aaron and his sons at the command of G'd, why does the Torah repeat: "as G'd had commanded Moses?" Perhaps the reason is that seeing Aaron and his sons had a direct financial benefit from this מצוה we could have assumed that Moses enjoyed the fact that he could bestow this benefit on his brother and nephews. The Torah tells us that Moses had no such considerations and that he performed G'd's instructions solely because he was commanded to do so.