Commentaire de citation sur Les Nombres 8:13

ואמר רב, and he (Korach) said: “enough, too much!” On son of Peleth was saved from sharing Korach’s fate by his wife. She told him that regardless of the outcome of the rebellion, he would not become a member of the priestly caste regardless, so that the outcome would on no account be of personal benefit to him. To this, On answered that seeing he had sat in the council with Korach and had sworn him loyalty, how could he now renege? His wife said to him: he himself has declared the whole community as being holy, so how could he punish you?” (compare verse 3) She told him to simply remain inactive, and she would devise a means to save him. She gave him wine to drink, and made him comfortable in the house. She then sat at the entrance to her tent and busied herself with straightening out her hair, a lengthy procedure, and not one to be watched by males. Before she had completed her coiffure, Korach and his supporters had already been swallowed by the earth. She thus became the model that Solomon had in mind when he wrote in Proverbs 14,1: חכמת נשים בנתה ביתה ואולת בידיה תהרסנו, “the wisest of women builds her house, whereas the foolish one destroys it with her own hands.” Solomon’s model for the foolish woman was Korach’s wife, who had urged him on to confront Moses and Aaron in their desire for more personal glory. She supported her husband in his quarrel by describing Moses as being only concerned with appointing his closest relatives to leading positions but ignoring her husband and appointing his nephews, Aaron’s sons as deputy High Priests instead. He allocated portions of every farmer’s harvest to the priests and even demanding of the Levites’ tithes that they give ten percent to the priests also. She described the manner in which the Levites had been appointed instead of the firstborn of each family’s household as the only ones that could enter sacred grounds as having been a demeaning procedure, each one of them having been bodily heaved as if they were chattel. (Compare the procedures described in Numbers 8,13) In short, Korach’s wife was a demagogue of the first order, who instead of calming his sense of having been passed over when honours were being distributed, egged him on, so that ultimately he and all his family-except his sons who recognised their father’s bias, so that they eventually became authors of the most beautiful hymns in the book of Psalms,-thus partially redeeming the honour of the family. [Different Midrashim elaborate on how Korach used even the occasion when Moses had elevated him to become a Levite as having performed acts to demean him so that no one could recognise him anymore, as all the hair of his body had first to be shaved off. [as had, of course, the hair of all the other 22300 Levites elevated thus on that occasion. Ed.] Korach answered his wife that Moses himself, being a Levite, had also shaved off all his own hair. She answered him that he had done so in order to get all the other Levites to do so, just as Samson when pulling down the pillars in the Temple of the Philistines, was aware that he would die also during the performance of this feat. (Judges 15,30) Korach’s wife ridiculed the law about fringes, and this is why it has been inserted in the Torah at this point. She did the same with the commandment to affix a mezuzah to every room in our houses except the bathrooms and the toilets. The Torah wished to emphasise that observance of these commandments, not on account of the logic behind them, but because they had been commanded by Hashem, brings us closer to Him. These reminders are with us both when we are at home and when we are away from home, when we wear the fringes at the corners of our garments. [In those days, practically all garments started out as being square sheets of cloth. Ed.]

ותנח התבה בחדש השביעי בשבעה עשר יום, “the ark came to rest on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.” According to Rashi, we learn from this verse that the ark was deep in the water to a depth of 11 cubits. If you were to counter that the Torah reported that the tops of the mountains had become visible on the first day of Av, and that by the first day of Tishrey nature had resumed to function as usual, as we know from verse 13, this would suggest that during the preceding 60 days the water level had dropped precipitously, and there are certainly many mountains that are higher than 15 cubits, so that the water level must have receded by a whole cubit every four days, how could the ark still have been in eleven cubits of water?We would have to answer that the (air surrounding mountains is measured by different yardsticks than the earth upon which they rise, so that all of the mountains and the waters surrounding them receded totally during those 60 days. The waters in the airspace above the level of the mountains receded at a different rate of speed. Once the waters had dropped below the mountainous regions, they retreated at the rate of one cubit per day. The proof that this interpretation is true is the fact that we do not encounter the expression חסרון, diminution, reduction, when the Torah speaks of the mountain tops having become visible again. This teaches that a minor abatement of the waters was not deemed worthy of comment. Rashi also comments: “if you were to interpret the word שביעי, “seventh month,” as referring to the month of Sivan, as referring to the period during which the waters abated, how could you understand the line: “the ark came to rest in the seventh month of the cumulative abatement of the waters as occurring on the seventeenth of the month?” At that time the waters had not yet even stopped increasing in their inundation of the surface of the earth? We had already proved that the waters inundated progressively more parts of the earth commencing with the cessation of the rain for 150 days! This day only concluded on the first day of Sivan! This was the day when the deluge reached its crest! Every day thereafter was part of the recovery from the deluge. According to Rashi, the relevant dates of the story of the deluge are as follows: “in the second month of the year. i.e. the month of Cheshvan, which according to the Talmud in Rosh Hashanah 12 is the second month of the year, the deluge commenced. According to the compilation of a well known historical text relied upon by our sages, known as seder olam, the sages accepted the view of Rabbi Eliezer concerning the Torah report of the deluge, whereas they accepted the view expressed by Rabbi Joshua, concerning the calculations of the seasons of the year. According to this view both the rains and the opening of subterranean wells commenced on the 17th day of the month of Cheshvan, on the morning of that day. Both events continued until the morning of the 28th day of Kislev. At that point both rain and waters from subterranean parts of the globe ceased, but the inundation was felt as increasing until the ark‘s bottom was 15 cubits above the top of the highest mountain. As a result the ark kept on moving. The process of waters rising continued from the morning of the 28th of Kislev until sundown on the first day of Sivan. This was followed immediately by the verse: ויזכור אלוקים את נח, that G-d remembered Noach, etc. (8,1) revealing that as from that day on the waters receded at the end of 150 days. (verse 3) The ark running aground occurred 7 days later on the 17th day of the seventh month, i.e. the 17th of Sivan.(verse 3). It was the seventh month after the rains had commenced to fall. The waters kept receding after the rains had ceased (verse 5) from the first of Sivan until the month of Av, the tenth month after the rains had commenced descending on the earth. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the highest mountains became visible. 40 days later on the tenth day of Ellul, Noach opened the window of the ark and sent out the raven. The raven not having returned, Noach sent out the pigeon after having waited for seven days. (according to Rashi). The pigeon returned to the ark not having found a foothold outside of it. Noach waited another seven days before sending out the pigeon again. This time the pigeon returned on the evening of the same day carrying part of an olive leaf in its beak. Some commentators believe that this leaf came from Mount Olives in the land of Israel. (Rabbi Levi in Bereshit Rabbah 33,6 according to the view that the rains did not flood the soil of the Land of Israel) The Scriptural basis for this view is found in Ezekiel 22,24: לא גושמה ביום זעם, “which was not rained upon on the day of anger.” Noach then waited for another seven days before dispatching a pigeon a third time. That time the pigeon did not return to the ark. Immediately after this, the Torah reports, (8,13) that the waters on earth had dried as of the first day of the month of Tishrey in the 601st year of Noach’s life. Finally, on the 27th day of Cheshvan, (57 days later) the soil was dry enough for man and beast to walk on without sinking into mud. Some commentators wonder what forced Rashi to state that the words: “it was at the end of forty days,” in 8,6 refer to 40 days after the tops of the mountains had become visible. If correct, why would the pigeon not have found a foothold on earth then? After all, 47 days had elapsed since that time before Noach sent out the pigeon. Some commentators dismiss this argument saying that since no actual land surfaces were visible, the pigeon did not find a suitable place to rest. We may assume that Rashi accepted the report of the Torah as following events chronologically so that the date on which the pigeon finally decided to remain outside the ark was on the first of Tishrey when the surface of the earth appeared dry, [capable of supporting the weight of a little bird. Ed.] Some commentators begin the count of 150 days from the first day the rains had commenced, i.e. from the 17th day of Cheshvan. Those days accordingly would include the 40 days of incessant rainfall. They consider the seventh month, Iyar as already a month during which the waters receded, just as we consider the tenth month as the month during which the waters receded. Their interpretation of the Torah’s report, commencing with 8,18: “the waters grew more powerful,” is thus: starting with the 17th of Cheshvan the water level on earth kept rising for a continuous 150 days culminating on the 20th day of Nissan. On that day the tide was turned and the waters began to recede. The ark came to rest on Mount Arrarat in the month of Iyar, i.e. the seventh month during which the waters were receding, on the 17th of that month. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month continuously, and during the tenth month of their retreat on the on the first of that month the tops of the tallest mountains became visible. The 15 cubits of water which had covered the tallest mountains for 95 days, between the 20th of Nissan until the 1st day of Av, had retreated at the rate of 1 cubit every 6 and a half days between the 20th of Nissan and the 16th day of Iyar, whereas the 11 cubits of the ark which were beneath the water level, retreated during the 7 days between the 17th of Iyar and the 1st day of Av, at the rate of one cubit every 6 and a half days. Some commentators explain the conclusion of this section in accordance with what we have learned in Seder Olam, which addresses the meaning of the paragraph commencing with: “it was at the end of 40 days (8,6)” as referring to 40 days which commenced with the first day in Sivan and concluded on the 10th day of Tammuz. According to that calculation, Noach immediately opened the window of the ark on that day and dispatched the raven. He then waited for seven days before dispatching the pigeon. He waited another seven days before dispatching the pigeon again. The reason why the pigeon on that occasion did not return was that it had found room on a top of a mountain that had been revealed in the meantime. The day under discussion was the first day of the month of Av, as already mentioned, seeing that the Torah had written that the tops of the mountains became visible on the first of the tenth month (8,5). Av is the tenth month of the year if the month during which the deluge started is considered as the “first month.” According to this method of counting, any part of a month is considered as if it were a full month. On the other hand, the month of Elul is never considered as the tenth month following Kislev during which the rains ceased, for if so, why when Noach dispatched a bird a third time would the pigeon not have returned to the ark seeing that according the calculation the tops of the mountains had not yet reappeared until the first of the month of Elul?Do not query the verse commencing with the words: והמים הלוך וחסור, “and the waters continued to diminish,” (8,5) by asking by what yardstick Noach decided on when to dispatch another bird, this is no problem for once the process of waters receding had commenced until the ark had come to rest on Mount Arrarat, Noach could confidently expect that with the passage of another week the chances of land appearing had increased. Between the first day of Av and the until the first day of Tishrey all the waters remaining from the deluge had been absorbed by the earth, and by the 27th of the month of Cheshvan the earth had become dry enough to walk on and to build on.

והניף אהרן את הלוים תנופה, “Aaron shall wave the Levites as a wave-service.” The word תנופה, “waving,” appears three times in this paragraph It appears in verse 11 as “Aaron shall wave the Levites...in the presence of the Lord.” It appears again in verse 15 ”you shall perform a wave-service with them.” It appears a third time in verse 13 in a similar connotation. According to Rashi the reason it appears three times is once each for the Kehatites, once for the Gershonites and once for the Merarites. This is the reason why the Torah varies the job-description of the Levites each time, once speaking of עבודת ה', i.e. the Kehatites who carried the Sanctuary (literally), i.e. the sacred vessels including the Holy Ark. When the Torah justified the other wave-offering describing the Levites in question as (כי עבודת הקדש עליהם (7,9, this was a job description of the Kehatites. Concerning the Gershonites the Torah merely writes 'תנופה לה, “a wave-offering for the Lord,” seeing that they too carried the woven materials of the roof and the courtyard. The third group of Levites, the Merarites who transported the beams, the sockets, etc., are referred to simply as undergoing a תנופה waving, but there is no mention of the word לה', “for the Lord,” seeing that this group was furthest from the center of sanctity. At the end of the whole paragraph (verse 21) we find once more that “Aaron waved (all) the Levites as a wave-offering in the presence of the Lord,” in order to show that all the Levites had qualified. As to the meaning of the words נתונים נתונים המה לי, “for presented, presented they are to Me,” in verse 16, this means that they have been presented to the Lord to perform either the song and music or the work of transportation, as the case may be at different times. Alternatively, these words are a justification for the appointment of the Levites to these sacred tasks in recognition of when they had presented themselves as totally dedicated to G’d during the golden calf episode.

ויעש משה ואהרן וכל עדת וגו׳ AND MOSES AND AARON AND ALL THE CONGREGATION … DID [TO THE LEVITES ACCORDING UNTO ALL THAT THE LORD COMMANDED MOSES] — i.e. Moses presented them (v. 13), Aaron made the waving with them (v. 11) and the Israelites put their hands (v. 10) upon the Levites’ heads (cf., however, Ibn Ezra).