Comentario sobre Números 31:54

AND THEY BROUGHT IT INTO THE TENT OF MEETING, FOR A MEMORIAL FOR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL BEFORE THE ETERNAL. It would appear from this verse that they made them [the ornaments they had captured] into vessels to be used for the Service [in the Sanctuary], and handed them over to the public for a memorial for all the children of Israel with which to perform the Service of G-d throughout their generations. For had these vessels [merely] gone to the treasury of the House of G-d [rather than actually being used for the Divine Service], the verse should rather have said, “a memorial ‘for them’ before the Eternal,” but [the phrase] the children of Israel [a memorial for ‘the children of Israel’] includes all the people, and [it means] that the memorial consists of something permanent.¹¹⁷For had the donations gone to the general treasury of the Sanctuary they would have only been a memorial to the donors, whereas now that they themselves were used as vessels in the Divine Service, they served as a memorial for all the children of Israel for all times, as the Service in the Sanctuary is designated for all generations (see e.g. Exodus 29:42).

ויקח משה, after having weighed it he brought it to the Tabernacle,

אל אהל מועד זכרון לבני ישראל, to the Tent of Meeting as a memorial for the children of Israel, etc. Why did the Torah use the unusual way of separating the words "Tent of Meeting" and "before G'd" by interposing the words "as a memorial for the children of Israel?" These words should have appeared at the end of the verse! We may be able to understand our verse with the help of a statement in Massechet Kallah. Said Rabbi Achai bar Yoshiah: "anyone who turns away from a sin that he was about to commit becomes as fit as the High Priest to offer a sacrifice on the altar even if he is not a priest." Thus far the relevant statement of Rabbi Achai. The pieces of jewelry offered by the commanders of the punitive expedition in our verse as sacrifices were all in the nature of offerings after the owners had spurned the commission of sins which they were about to commit. The jewelry had been taken literally from the persons with whom the sin in question would have been committed. Our sages commented on Song of Songs, 6,6: "your teeth are like a flock of ewes," that during the war in question the Israelite soldiers removed the Midianite women's personal jewelry, smeared some kind of plaster and dung on their faces, took off their nose-rings so that they would not be tempted to look at them and to lust after them. This is what the Torah had in mind with the words לבני ישראל followed by the words לפני השם. The soldiers in question had elevated themselves to a spiritual level equivalent to the priests who offer the sacrifices before G'd in the Tabernacle. Their conduct became a memorial for future generations of Israelites.

ויביאו אותו אל אהל מועד זכרון לבני ישראל, “they brought it to the Tent of Meeting as a remembrance for the Children of Israel.” Nachmanides explains this verse as the Israelites constructing various vessels made from captured gold coins and jewelry, these newly made vessels to be used in the activities connected to the holy service in the Tabernacle. If these vessels would only have been stored in the Temple treasury, the Torah should have written זכרון להם, “as a remembrance for the people who had brought them to the Temple treasury.” The reason that the Torah wrote זכרון לבני ישראל was that by their being used in the Temple service they acted as a remembrance for the whole people.

V. 54. זכרון לבני ישראל לפני ד׳ (siehe zu V. 50).

as a remembrance for the Jewish people, to serve as expiation of the sin committed at Baal Peor.