The Middle Ground — Nasso 5781

As the Israelites wander the desert, journeying from camp to camp, they carry their precious objects with them—the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, all the holy objects with which Aaron and his sons perform rituals on behalf of the Israelite people. There’s an order to this procession that has always impressed me, with carefully assigned tasks and duties for different groups of Israelites, organized by tribe and by individual families within those tribes.

The Levites, in particular, play an important role in this migration process. Jewish tradition holds that the Levites were the only tribe not to participate in building and worshiping the Golden Calf, and for this they were rewarded, named servants of the priestly class, and given the privilege of carrying the Israelite’s holiest objects from camp to camp.

Later, once the Israelites invade and conquer Canaan, the Levites were the only tribe not to receive an allotment of land, and were instead granted hereditary holdings in 48 cities across ancient Israel. And, as servants of the kohanim, the high priests descended from Aaron, the Levites performed special roles in the Temple in Jerusalem, just as they had in the desert—playing music, opening and closing gates, and standing guard over the Temple Mount.

This week’s Torah portion, Nasso, begins with a description of the special tasks allotted to each of the three main Levite families—the Gershonites, the Merarites, and the Kohathites. Nasso is commonly translated as “take a census,” which in a literal sense is how the word is used in this week’s Torah portion.