Commentaire de citation sur Les Nombres 3:17

חלבו האליה תמימה, ”its choicest part, the entire tail.” Normally, in Hebrew, the fat which is separated from the meat is called חלב, and it is peeled off the meat which it adjoins. The expression שומן applies to fat which is so much part of the flesh that it is not easily separated. When Moses said (Deut. 32,15) וישמן ישורון...שמנת עבית, “Yeshurun (Israel) has become fat,...you have become corpulent,” he referred to the fact that this “fatness, grossness,” had become an inseparable part of the personality of the Jewish people. We also have a verse in Psalms 63,6 חלב ודשן תשבע נפשי, “I am sated as with rich fat.” Our sages in Chulin 49 describe this kind of חלב, as תותב קרום נקלף “a sheet or layer which can be peeled off.” The reason they named it thus is because it is like a garment covering the meat. The Hebrew translation of the word תותב is שמלה, “garment, dress.” From all the above it is clear that not only are the terms חלב and שומן different but that these terms describe totally different parts of the animal. Whereas חלב is almost impossible to boil or otherwise make edible, שומן, is an integral part of the meat. It is warm and moist, whereas חלב is cold and dry. Seeing that this is so, we must ask why the Torah describes the tail of the sheep, אליה, as covered with חלב instead of with שומן? This tail does not have any of the fat parts which we defined as typical of those which the Torah describes usually as חלב. The fat of the tail is an integral part of the tail, not peel-able. If, on the other hand, we would conclude that here the Torah used the word חלב for something which is really שומן, what are we to make out of verse 17 in our chapter where the Torah commands כל חלב וכל דם לא תאכלו, “you must not eat any fat or any blood?” Surely if the words חלב and שומן are used interchangeably, then that verse prohibits the eating of שומן also, and only red meat is permissible.

עד שובך אל האדמה, “until you return to the soil.” As soon as man had died the decree cursing the earth became null and void, as we explained. (verse 17) [Our author appears anxious to counter the Christian doctrine that all of mankind, forever suffers from the consequences of Adam and Chavah’s sin, especially woman which is considered as having brought hereditary sin into the world. Ed.]

נשא את ראש בני גרשון גם הם, “take the sum of the sons of Gershon, also;” seeing that on the first occasion, (Numbers 3,17) when the Levites were counted from 30 days old and up, the Gersonides were listed first, (seeing he was the oldest of sons of Levi, as per Genesis 46,11) whereas here when only the ones thirty years and older were counted and Kehot was counted first, (seeing that he performed the most holy tasks of the Levites), the words גם הם, “they also,” were added here to show that this section of the Levites also was counted.