ספר במדבר

Numbers 2,49 ‎, “but do not count the tribe of Levi as ‎an integral part of the Children of Israel.” The Torah consists ‎of 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments ‎which between them represent a variety of lights, whereas the ‎Tabernacle represents spiritual lights condensed within it so that ‎they do not harm human beings by blinding them. The Israelites ‎are also each considered as a light seeing that each represents one ‎of the letters in the Torah. We have a rule that whenever 613 ‎physical lights are present they must be matched by an equal ‎number of spiritual lights so that they can combine in the service ‎of the Lord. These latter “lights” are called ‎אברים הרוחניים‎, “the ‎‎248 spiritualized limbs and 365 spiritualized tendons.” When the ‎Creator dispenses of His largesse, He does so via these ‎spiritualized limbs and tendons.‎Some human beings can become only passive recipients of ‎spiritualized light, whereas others are able to “see” how the ‎largesse from G’d progresses from the spiritual domain to the ‎physical domain. These latter people are called prophets. The ‎prophet Samuel I 9,9, describes this process when he wrote: ‎לפנים ‏בישראל כה אמר האיש בלכתו לדרוש אלוקים לכו ונלכה עד הרואה כי לנביא ‏היום יקרא לפנים הרואה‎, “formerly, in Israel, when a man wanted to ‎seek out the word of G’d, he would say: ‘come let us go to the ‎Seer, for the prophet of today was formerly known as “Seer.’”‎We also find an allusion to this in Numbers 8,4 where the ‎Torah writes: ‎וזה מעשה המנורה.....כמראה אשר הראה ה' את משה כן עשה ‏את המנורה‎, “and this is how the menorah was ‎made:…….according to the pattern that the Lord had shown ‎Moses so he constructed the menorah.” When the Torah ‎wrote in detail about the construction of the menorah in Exodus ‎chapter 25 and chapter 37, no mention was made of G’d having ‎shown Moses a pattern of this lampstand although the Torah ‎provided extensive descriptions of this lampstand in both of these ‎chapters. In both those chapters the menorah was treated ‎as an integral part of the Tabernacle, and the Tabernacle dealt ‎with abstract spiritual concepts. The menorah per se ‎symbolizes a visual impact of the largesse transferred by G’d from ‎His celestial treasure house to the terrestrial part of the universe. ‎This largesse is in constant motion between the celestial and the ‎terrestrial domains of the universe. The Torah bears witness to ‎the fact that G’d showed this to Moses while he had been on ‎Mount Sinai.‎Moses was not to count the Levites together with the other ‎Israelites, as the 12 tribes (Israelites) symbolize the abstract ‎spiritual dimension of celestial light, whereas the Levites ‎symbolize transfer of G’d’s largesse from the most high celestial ‎regions to what we have described as the “abstract spiritual” ‎dimension represented by the 12 tribes of Israel.‎This is also why, when speaking of the process of purifying ‎the Levites the Torah (Numbers 8,7) the Torah speaks of ‎והעבירו ‏תער על כל בשרם‎, “they have to shave off all the hair on their flesh ‎with a razor,” the reason being that “hair” symbolizes clothing, ‎and clothing is something that separates between one’s essence ‎and contact with something from the outside. The Levites were ‎to be as receptive to the emanations from the highest celestial ‎regions as possible [as had been Adam and Eve before they ‎had been provided with clothing, as a result of the barrier their ‎sin had created between them and G’d. Ed.]‎