Halakhah for Numbers 1:8

The purity of the family unit is the cornerstone of the sanctity of the community of Israel. The Gemara, Kiddushin 70a, declares, "The Divine Presence does not rest other than upon genealogically pure families of Israel." In that succinct statement the Sages eloquently underscore the importance of the family and its genealogical purity in the Jewish system of values. At the very inception of the Jewish faith-community in the wilderness of Sinai our ancestors "declared their pedigrees according to their families" (Num. 1:8) and the family assumed its position as the most fundamental of Jewish institutions.