ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף במדבר 1:2

והאחין מן האב – as it is written (Numbers 27:10): “in his own clan, and he shall inherit it.” And the family/clan of the father is called a family, as it is written (Numbers 1:2): “by the clans of its ancestral houses.”

מבן עשרים שנה ומעלה מבית אבותם, “from twenty years and up according to their respective fathers’ house.” When enumerating the tribe of Reuven, the Torah here omits the addition למשפחותם, ”according to their families,” which we had found in the previous census (Numbers 1,2). The reason is that in the interval of almost 40 years some intermarriage with the members of Korach’s family had occurred, as a result of which such members of Korach’s expanded family perished with him. [This is not surprising, as the discontented Reuvenites had felt sympathy for Korach’s rebellion and intermarriage between them was based on common interests. Ed.] (The author refers the reader to his commentary on Numbers 1,18 where he dealt with this at greater length)

It is possible to explain the fact that the word תרומה occurs here three times in two verses as meaning that the Torah speaks of three different contributions by means of which the world is elevated. They are: חכמה, תבונה, ודעת, “wisdom-insight-know-ledge.” This is based on Proverbs 3,19-20: “G’d founded the earth with wisdom; He established the heavens with understanding. By His knowledge the depths were broken up.” The reason why these facts were alluded to here was that the construction of the Tabernacle was comparable to the construction of the universe (Bamidbar Rabbah 12,13). The first of these gifts was the one mentioned here which was used for the construction of the Tabernacle. The second תרומה consisted of the half-shekel which every male over the age of 20 had to contribute after the sin of the golden calf for the construction of the sockets of the beams making up the walls of the Tabernacle (Exodus 30,13). The third was the contribution known as תרומת המזבח, the half shekel contributed by all the males for financing the cost of the daily public offerings to be brought on behalf of the entire people. This is the תרומה mentioned in Numbers 1,2 where Moses was commanded to count the males above the age of twenty. The counting took place by means of each Israelite contributing a coin of a half-shekel. Of these three תרומות, contributions, two were considered sacred (the money), whereas the third, the one mentioned in 30,13 was not of sacred character as the occasion was the need to atone for the donor’s part in the sin of the golden calf. This is spelled out in detail by the words ונתנו איש כופר נפשו, “they shall each contribute (the half shekel) as an atonement for his soul” (30,12). When the Israelites entered the Holy Land they were once more commanded three times to contribute a תרומה. Two of these contributions were sacred in character, whereas the third was profane. The third, i.e. חלה, was profane seeing that it is applicable not only in the Holy Land but also in the Diaspora. The reason that the commandment of חלה, a תרומה for the priest, is the exception in that it also has to be set aside in the Diaspora is to ensure that the knowledge of this commandment will not be forgotten during the long years of exile the Jewish people experienced. In order to make it clear to us that the Tabernacle’s construction equaled that of the creation of the universe the Torah mentioned all the three תרומות which contributed to the founding of earth (as per the verse in Proverbs) at the beginning of the portion before we hear the details of the materials and quantities and measurements required. This is why the Torah writes about Betzalel the master-craftsman in charge of the construction of the Tabernacle: “I have filled him with a Godly spirit, with wisdom, insight, and knowledge, and with every craft” (Exodus 31,3). According to Berachot 55 Betzalel was able to combine the letters of the alphabet or of the Torah in the manner in which they had been used to create the universe. The wording of our verse is what I have just quoted, and the wording in Proverbs is: “G’d founded earth with wisdom, etc.” Our sages wanted to hint when writing all this that there was a parallelism of the wisdom required in creating the universe and in the wisdom required to carry out the instructions pertaining to constructing the Tabernacle and its contents.