Bamidbar: Playing one’s proper role

The beginning of our new book informs us of the order of travels, and how the people encamped around the Mishkan (Tabernacle). Those most immediately around the Mishkan were the Levite families, whose jobs consisted of carrying the different parts of the Mishkan.The specific assignments given to the families are enumerated at the end of the Torah portion, and spills over into next week’s parsha.

We are told at the end of the opening chapter that when they would travel and when they would rest the Levites would disassemble and reassemble the Mishkan, with the warning that “the stranger who came close would die.” (1:51) And, as Rashi notes, this death punishment was to be carried out by G-d, not by Man.

If only it were so simple.

Ibn Ezra is of the view that the death penalty was to be carried out by the court, and his definition of a stranger is only an Israelite who attempted to participate in the role assigned to the Levites. Chizkuni includes even a Levite who overstepped his boundaries, going beyond his assigned role. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch elaborates on this distinction, reminding us that each Levite, from each Levite family, had a specific area that was that family’s purview. No Levite could switch from task to task (based on the Talmud Arakhin 11b) and every Kohen was similarly forbidden to participate in the Levites’ work.

While the Kohen is forbidden to work in the Mishkan as a Levite, is he subject to the same punishment as the Israelite or the Levite who switched roles?

According to the Ktav V’Hakabbalah, the answer is Yes. The Kohen is also considered to be a stranger to the work of the Levites. And, taking Rashi’s side against Ibn Ezra, he claims that any kind of death resulting from miscues in the Temple Service were only punishable by G-d, “in the hands of Heaven.” He even calls Ibn Ezra by name, as he rejects the approach that the court would carry out such a verdict.

As we never really know what “causes” natural deaths, it is hard for humans to ever point to a faux-pas and lay blame on it. It is one of the dilemmas we face in trying to understand the deaths of Rabbi Akiva’s students as described in the Talmud, for “not having respected one another.”