Commentary for Numbers 15:15

ככם כגר means, AS YOU ARE SO IS THE STRANGER (“you and the stranger shall be alike”). Thus (the use of the prefix כ with each of two things or persons stated to be exactly alike) is the Hebrew idiom to express complete similarity. Examples are: (Genesis 13:10) “As (כ) the garden of the Lord so (כ) is the land of Egypt”; (1 Kings 22:4) “As (כ) I am so (כ) art thou; as (כ) my people is so (כ) is thy people”.

Like me, like you. (Nachalas Yaakov) Rashi had to expand upon and bring proofs to his explanation because normally the two kafs would come to equate the two things together, not merely to equate one to the other. This is not so here where Rashi explains that they will be like you, but it is not possible to explain the other way, that you shall be like the proselyte. Thus he brings a proof from the verse “Like Hashem’s garden, like the land of Egypt” which means that so is the land of Egypt. There too, it is impossible to explain the other way — “like the land of Egypt so too is the land of the garden of Hashem” because the garden of Hashem is certainly greater than the land of Egypt. Similarly with “like me, like you” regarding Yehoshafat and Yehoram one can not explain the other way around and nonetheless Scripture writes it with two kafs.

V. 15. הקהל, vielleicht in dem Sinne wie מעיני הקהל. (Wajikra 4, 13): die mit der Gesamtleitung der Nation betraute Gerichtsversammlung. Nach Kiduschin 73 a scheint es jedoch, wie קהל ד׳. (Dewarim 23, 3) als die jüdische Volksgemeine zu verstehen zu sein. — חקה אחת וגו׳: eine Gebühr, eine Rechtsbefugnis (vergl. Bereschit 47, 22). — ככם בגר יהיה לפני ד׳, wie hier im Opfer, so überhaupt völlige Gleichheit vor Gott, d. h. in allen Beziehungen des Menschen zu Gott und Gottes zum Menschen, und endlich überhaupt: