Chasidut zu Dewarim 1:18
וָאֲצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם בָּעֵ֣ת הַהִ֑וא אֵ֥ת כָּל־הַדְּבָרִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תַּעֲשֽׂוּן׃
Und ich habe dir damals alles geboten, was du tun sollst.
Kedushat Levi
Numbers 1,2. “take a census of the whole community of the Children of Israel by their families according to their ancestral houses, etc;” Deuteronomy 1,18. “and on the first day of the second month they convoked the whole community who were registered by families and their ancestral houses;”
According to Rashi the word ויתילדו means that each male brought a document confirming his birth date and the name of his father.
Personally, I am inclined to accept the word ויתילדו at face value, a word derived from לידה, “birth,” and that the Torah emphasizes the difference between how gentiles identify themselves and how Israelites identify themselves. Gentiles identify themselves only according to their mothers, as one can never be certain who the father is, seeing that gentiles do not observe the rules of marital fidelity, and even when they do, they engage in extra marital relationships that produce children. The Torah’s emphasis on the Israelites being able to identify themselves according to their “families” as meaning according to their “father’s houses,” is one of the greatest compliments the Torah could pay the Jewish people. The very commandment to arrange a census being addressed to the “heads” of the Children of Israel, i.e. their male family heads, shows that after having constructed G’d’s residence on earth, the Tabernacle, they were now allowed to conduct the census based on paternity rather than on maternity.
According to Rashi the word ויתילדו means that each male brought a document confirming his birth date and the name of his father.
Personally, I am inclined to accept the word ויתילדו at face value, a word derived from לידה, “birth,” and that the Torah emphasizes the difference between how gentiles identify themselves and how Israelites identify themselves. Gentiles identify themselves only according to their mothers, as one can never be certain who the father is, seeing that gentiles do not observe the rules of marital fidelity, and even when they do, they engage in extra marital relationships that produce children. The Torah’s emphasis on the Israelites being able to identify themselves according to their “families” as meaning according to their “father’s houses,” is one of the greatest compliments the Torah could pay the Jewish people. The very commandment to arrange a census being addressed to the “heads” of the Children of Israel, i.e. their male family heads, shows that after having constructed G’d’s residence on earth, the Tabernacle, they were now allowed to conduct the census based on paternity rather than on maternity.
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