Parshat Bamidbar
by Rabbi Avi Billet
I don’t think it is strange to us now, because we are so used to it, but the idea that one tribe would stand head and shoulders above the other tribes of Israel seems to be rather anti-democratic. Mind you, the Torah doesn’t exactly have a democratic system, but it certainly isn’t autocratic. It is possible to have many judges and many batei din, and we all follow the same law books. The judges don’t write the law - they enforce the law; the king also doesn’t write the law, as he too is subject to the Torah’s laws and to the laws discussed by the Torah scholars of their generation. As we know from our own time, different hashkafot inform different perspectives, so even with the same Torah, there are many ways scholars of each generation define things.
But the tribe of Levi does carry its own special status. Much of it has to do with their response to the Golden Calf, and surely there are other reasons as well.
Our parsha makes several references to the change and transition that the tribe of Levi underwent in order to become “the Levites.”
In his commentary on 1:53, on the portion that describes where the Levites lived and where they were to always be situated in the wilderness encampment, Netziv makes a few salient points.
“They were [most directly] around the Mishkan for the honor and needs of the Mishkan, but it was also to protect Israel, as the divine presence was revealed most clearly in the Mishkan. As a result [of the divine presence being so close], Israel was at risk of being punished for any sin, as might be anyone who commits a crime close to the king’s palace. So the Levites served as a sort of buffer to protect [the people] from God’s wrath.
“[Another purpose of this setup] was an opposite reason, so that they would protect Israelites from getting too close to the Mishkan. Another explanation… is that the Mishkan represents the power of the Torah to protect the Israelites from snakes and scorpions in the wilderness, as is well known, because firebolts would come from the Ark to burn those snakes and scorpions. Now God commanded the Levites to serve as the guardians of the Mishkan, through their study of Torah, and in their merit Israel would be protected, in the same manner that the Mishkan would normally protect them.”
[Regarding the firebolts he references, see Devarim Rabba Ki Savo 7:9, Shir Hashirim Rabba 3:2, Midrash Tehillim 22, Yalkut Shimoni Shir Hashirim 992 s”v “Rauhah”]
Whether we are meant to take this series of explanations literally or as a figurative idea, clearly there is a view that Netziv shares that the Leviim became representatives and guardians of the Torah, and their stewardship of this position also served as a guardian for the Bnei Yisrael.
As we near the end of Sefiras Ha’Omer, we are faced with a reality-reminder that sadly the Torah is not an automatic guardian from all ills. We are told that Rabbi Akiva’s students, great masters of Torah, died from an illness during one season of Sefiras Ha’Omer. There are explanations given for why they perished, the most famous being that they didn’t respect one another, but one wonders if that is really the reason? Is “lo nahagu kavod zeh bazeh” a crime worthy of a death sentence? Where is that mentioned in the Torah as a capital crime?
Perhaps a different tale of Rabbi Akiva and a student can help us understand.
The Gemara in Nedarim relates: “There was a student of Rabbi Akiva who got sick, and the Chachamim did not come to check on him. Rabbi Akiva came to check, and because he cleaned the room (כבדו) and settled the dust, the student lived. He said, ‘Rebbe, you have brought me back to life!’ Rabbi Akiva emerged and taught ‘Anyone who does not check on the sick is as if he has spilled blood.’ When Rav Dimi came, he explained, ‘Anyone who visits the sick causes him to live, whoever does not visit the sick causes him to die.’ What causality is this? If you explain that one who checks on the ill is checking in order to pray for the person’s recovery, and anyone who does not check on the ill will be praying for mercy that the person die, do you really mean to say a person would pray that the sick person should die? Rather [Rav Dimi meant] that whoever does not check on the sick person does not pray for the person at all – neither that the person should live nor that the person should die!” (Nedarim 40a)
Theories surrounding why Rabbi Akiva’s students died abound. Did they all get a contagious disease because they spent so much time together? [If so, how was Rabbi Akiva spared? Didn’t he spend time with his students?] Was it simply a gezeirah (decree) from heaven that they should die? Was it a punishment? Or did they die because no one visited them – which is not a death sentence, but a sad reflection on their general behavior towards one another, with a dire outcome? Can we read “Lo nahagu kavod zeh lazeh” to say “Lo nahagu kibud zeh lazeh," the word used to described how Rabbi Akiva had the room with the sick student cleaned up, causing him to live?
Rabbi Nachman says they died of Askerah (Yevamos 62b), which is “the worst of the 903 methods of dying that God put into the world.” (See Gemara Brachos 8a (a fascinating page for our times, if one reads from the top of the page! Askerah’s definition is subject to dispute – it may have been an intestinal issue or a throat issue, or a combination of both. Is it contagious though? It depends on what illness it really is!)
The biggest question is, would they have suffered this fate if they had behaved differently? Shouldn’t their Torah protect them? Shouldn’t Rabbi Akiva’s teachings and merits protect them?
In the passages in Nedarim and Yevamos, Rabbi Akiva learned and taught a profound lesson from the experiences he had watching his students, one get better, and the many die. His teaching from the one who got better was to look after the ill, check in on them, see that their needs are taken care of properly, that someone is advocating on their behalf. Otherwise they will die. His teaching gleaned from the students who died (there is a passage in the Tanchuma on Chayei Sarah that indicates he only had 300 students who died – which is a very different number than the one we are familiar with from the Talmud in Yevamos) was to teach Torah in your youth, in case you need to teach Torah again in your old age (because all your students die).
It is also possible that Rabbi Akiva taught that “V’ahavta L’reiakha kamokha” (to love your neighbor as yourself) is an important principle of the Torah (Yerushalmi Nedarim 9:4 and many Midrashim) after learning the lesson of what happens to students who don’t respect one another.
In sum, it is hard to point to the reason for their death, but we are meant to learn the lessons Rabbi Akiva learned and the lessons the Talmud teaches us about respecting others.
What the ancients knew about disease is certainly a fascinating subject. What did they know about viruses and things the human eye cannot see? Answers to that question may help us understand the Rabbi Akiva students story better. At the same time, no matter what modern scholarship has uncovered about that era, I am sure there are a lot of unanswered questions – the debate rages on about the fate of Rabbi Akiva’s students.
People are different. Some people are naturally immune to certain diseases, based on the unique molecular structure of their blood, along with many other explanations that science can point to, as well as explanations that evade human knowledge and understanding.
The same holds true about the virus our world is dealing with. As more people get it, as more tests are done, as more data is analyzed, more information comes out. The varying views of experts demonstrate there is no expertise on this Coronavirus because it is all relatively new for everyone. Many people have gotten it with no signs of illness or discomfort. It is likely that many people who were exposed didn’t contract it at all.
So what are we to do?
If we internalize what the Talmud is telling us, we would see that the world and life is much bigger than the story that has overtaken the media in the last few months. We would see that the non-checking in on the sick (many who died because they had no advocate in their hospital or care-facility), and the fear that prevented many people nationwide from going to the hospital to address their other health issues has also carried a death toll. From reports I saw, that number is in the tens of thousands. That’s the Rabbi Akiva lesson from Nedarim 40.
We would understand that there are many ways that people die. The range of their pleasantness to unpleasantness (that’s how the Gemara describes the range!) is discussed in the Talmud, but the Talmud makes it clear that death is part of life. We have always known this, and yet many of us fear death because it is an unknown. Perhaps it is also because we feel we have much more to do in this life! But are we taking steps to accomplish that which we may think we still need to do? That’s a lesson from Brachos 8.
Most importantly, we would treat each other nicely. Some of the explanations surrounding Rabbi Akiva’s students’ behavior demonstrate that people who had different opinions, different methods of learning and different speeds for processing information, were degraded, denigrated, and simply not given basic human courtesy and decency for being and thinking differently than the elite students. That’s the lesson from Yevamos 62.
I have a hypothetical question: What would the last ten weeks have looked like if there were no 24/7 media, no social media, no daily press conferences, no radio or podcasts, and maybe just a daily newspaper? (Certainly the mind can veer from doom, gloom and Armageddon (one extreme) to our world experiencing a worse virus than we might be used to seeing, but with personal quarantines and noted caution versus a complete shutdown of life for all (a different extreme). I guess we’ll never know!) Would the country be divided in the response to and aftermath of the virus on political lines? Would we live in fear of one another? Would we hate people who see things differently than our vantage points?
Maybe we need the Leviim and the Torah to protect us. Maybe we need to learn the lessons Rabbi Akiva learned. Maybe we need to daven harder for ourselves and for the world. We certainly need to respect one another without caveats and without limitations (especially when our differences are in the realm of opinions).
With blessings of health and safety to all, Shabbat Shalom U’mevorach!
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