Imagine that we come to the palace of the king, and when we enter the palace there is a list of all the guards in charge of guarding the palace. We see the ages of the guards, and among them we find that there are little children and even one-month-old infants, a great wonder grabs us: Are these the king’s guards? Not only do they not know how to guard, they do not even know what guarding means?!
HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells Moshe Rabeinu (3:14), 'פקד את בני לוי ...כל זכר מבן חדש ומעלה' – ‘Count the sons of Levi... every male from one month of age and up’, and so Moshe did, he counted them with the babies as per the command of Hashem, and at the end the Torah brings the total (3:28), 'כל זכר מבן חדש ומעלה שמונת אלפים ושש מאות שומרי משמרת הקודש' – ‘Every male from one month of age and up was eight thousand, six hundred; the guardians in charge of the sanctity’, and we try to understand who is the Torah referring to here as ‘the guardians of the sanctity’? To one month old infants? And if so, there must be a specific reason for this, and this too we want to know.
Chazal reveal to us what is so unique about the Tribe of Levi, because they did not sin with the Golden Calf. Really, how did they specifically withstand the difficult challenge, and they did not sin with the Golden Calf? This did not begin there; this began long before then. In Egypt when Pharoah called all Bnei Yisrael to come and work for good pay, the Bnei Levi refused to go out to work and remained in Kollel to learn Torah. Therefore, they were not included in the subjugation of Egypt, and since all those years they were guards in the Batei Medrash, therefore, when the time of the challenge came, it was much easier for them to withstand the challenge, and they did not err in the sin of the Golden Calf. It is for this reason that the Creator chose them to be ‘the guardians in charge of the sanctity’, for this assignment does not demand of the assignee to be ‘armed’, just the opposite, the service they are giving him is so spiritual, that they already serve even before they can see anything, from one month of age and up.
This week we are all standing again at ‘Kabbalas HaTorah’, and everyone has the opportunity to join the legions of the king and become ‘the guardians in charge of the sanctity’. This is not difficult; we do not need a weapon and we do not have to learn the art of war. We have but one clear decision, I belong here, and this is something everyone can do.
-Tiv HaTorah - Bamidbar
