Komentarz do Liczb 18:4

וזר לא יקרב אליכם AND A LAYMAN SHALL NOT APPROACH UNTO YOU — It is you whom I admonish concerning this.

ושמרו את משמרת אהל מועד, within the curtained off area of the courtyard.

ושמרו את משמרת אהל מועד, “and they are to safeguard the duties pertaining to the Tent of Meeting.” The purpose of this שמירה, supervision, is to enhance the reputation of the Tabernacle as it is a well known fact that any building surrounded by guards of honour is considered as of greater importance by people seeing the guards than even a palace not surrounded by guards.

I admonish you. Meaning: I am warning you to warn the Israelites not to approach to the service of the kehunah. Previously they were warned regarding the Levites, but now they were warned regarding the Israelites. Although this is a kal vachomer (a fortiori argument), that if they were warned regarding the Levites, all the more so this would apply to the Israelites, one cannot derive a punishment by using logical argument.

V. 4. וגלוו עליך וגו׳ (vergl. Kap. 3, 7 u. 8). לעבודה :וזר לא יקרב אליכם (ספרי). Kein Nichtberechtigter darf zur Verrichtung einer euch übertragenen עבודה hintreten. Es ist dies die Warnung, deren Richtbeachtung V. 7 mit מיתה בידי שמים bedacht ist (ספרי; siehe auch Sebachim 16a).

וזר לא יקרב אליכם, “and a stranger (non Levite or priest) shall not approach you.” We have heard the warning, but where is the penalty for violation spelled out? Look at verse 7, where the Torah spells it out, i.e. והזר הקרב יומת, “and if a stranger approaches (crosses the boundary) he is subject to execution.”

That is that He commanded us to guard the Temple and to constantly walk around it, to honor it, to exalt it and to aggrandize it. And that is His saying to Aharon, "while you and your sons under your charge are before the Tent of the Testimony" (Numbers 18:2). And this command has already been repeated with different language, and that is His saying, "and keep the charge of the Tent of Meeting" (Number 18:4). And it is written in the Sifrei (Sifrei Bamidbar 116:1), "'While you and your sons under your charge are before the Tent of the Testimony' - the priests within, and the Levites outside." And in the Mekhilta, they said, "'And keep the charge of the Tent of Meeting' - this tells me only that it is with a positive commandment. From where [do we know that] it is also with a negative commandment? [Hence,] we learn to say, 'And you shall keep the charge of the sanctuary.'" Behold it has been made clear to you that guarding the Temple is a positive commandment. And there it is said, "It is an aggrandizement to the Temple that it has guardians; and a palace that has guardians is not the same as a palace that does not have guardians." And it is well known that, palace, is a name for the [Temple] chamber. They said that the aggrandizement and exaltation of the chamber is [generated by the presence] of the guards that are assigned to it. And the regulations of this commandment have already all been explained in Tractates Tamid and Middot. (See Parashat Korach; Mishneh Torah, The Chosen Temple 1.)