Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Commentary פַּרְשָׁנוּת
Benei Yisrael are counted quite a few times in the Torah. God commands a count back in Shemot (chapter 30), and now Sefer Bemidbar opens with a similar command. This makes you begin to wonder:
Are these different stories, or is the Torah telling us more details about the same census that happened back in Shemot?
Our פַּרְשָׁנִים (parshanim, commentators) weigh in.
מִתּוֹךְ חִבָּתָן לְפָנָיו מוֹנֶה אוֹתָם כָּל שָׁעָה. כְּשֶׁיָּצְאוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם מְנָאָן, וּכְשֶׁנָּפְלוּ בָּעֵגֶל מְנָאָן לֵידַע מִנְיַן הַנּוֹתָרִים. כְּשֶׁבָּא לְהַשְׁרוֹת שְׁכִינָתוֹ עֲלֵיהֶם מְנָאָם. בְּאֶחָד בְּנִיסָן הוּקַם הַמִּשְׁכָּן וּבְאֶחָד בְּאִיָּר מְנָאָם.
God counts Benei Yisrael frequently because they are so dear to God. God counted them when they left Egypt and after the sin of the golden calf to see how many had survived. God counted them when the mishkan was established. That was on the first day of Nisan, and now, on the first day of Iyyar, God counted them again.
וּמָה שֶׁאָמַר בְּאֵלֶּה פְּקוּדֵי זֶהוּ זֶה מִנְיָן שֶׁבְּכַאן...שֶׁאֵין לוֹמַר שֶׁנִּמְנוּ שְׁנֵי פְּעָמִים וְלֹא פַּחֲתוּ וְלֹא הוֹתִירוּ.
The count in Parashat Pekudei (in Shemot) is the count here… it’s not possible that they were counted twice, and their numbers didn’t go down or up.
Did you know that there are a lot of times in the Torah when two or more stories seem similar to each other? In many of these cases, Bekhor Shor thinks they are different versions of the same story, just like he does here. For example, Shemot 17 and Bemidbar 20 both have stories of Moshe performing a miracle to get water to come out of rocks. Some parshanim think these are two different stories, but Bekhor Shor (Bemidbar 20:8) thinks they are the same story that, for some reason, is recorded twice in the Torah.
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