Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, the leaders of the Exodus from Egypt, were born into the tribe of Levi.1 When the Israelites are wildly worshiping the Golden Calf, Moses calls out:
“Whoever is for God, to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered to him. (Exodus 32:26)
The male descendants of Levi obey Moses’ order to go through the camp killing the calf-worshippers. But the Levites are not specifically mentioned again until the book of Numbers, which begins with a census of all the men of Israel who are twenty years old and above and are able to bear arms. The three priests (Aaron and his two surviving sons, Elazar and Itamar) and the tribe of Levi are excluded.
And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Indeed, you must not muster the tribe of Levi; you must not lift their heads [i.e. count them in a census] among the sons of Israel. You must assign the Levites over the Sanctuary of the Testimony, and over all its gear, and over all that belongs to it. They will carry the sanctuary and all its gear, and they themselves will guard it and they will camp all around the sanctuary.” (Numbers/Bemidbar 1:48-50)
The “Sanctuary of the Testimony” is the portable tent-sanctuary the Israelites made for God in Exodus, with the “Ark of the Testimony” in its rear chamber, the Holy of Holies. This sanctuary is also called the Tent of Meeting, since Moses and God converse there.
Later in the first Torah portion of Numbers, Bemidbar, God adds:
“Bring forward the tribe of Levi and station them in front of Aaron hakohein, and they will wait on him. And they … serve the service of the sanctuary.” (Numbers 3:6)
hakohein (הַכֹּהֵן) = the priest (usually the high priest). Kohein (כֺּהֵן) = priest, and kohanim (כֺּהֲנִים) = priests.
The book of Numbers establishes three categories of people: priests (Kohanim), Levites (Leviyim), and Israelites (Yisrael). Even today, when Jews give their Hebrew names at services, those descended from the Kohanim add “hakohein” and those descended from the Leviyim add “halevi”.2 All other Jews are in the Yisrael category.
The priests (kohanim) and the Levites (Leviyim) get their ordination in two different books of the Torah. This week’s Torah portion, Beha-alotkha (Numbers 8:1-12:16) ordains the Levites in a ceremony that treats them like an animal offering.
But the first priests are ordained in the book of Leviticus, when the altar is inaugurated.3 Their ordination ceremony treats them like the altar.
Ordination of priests
This ordination of priests begins when Moses washes Aaron and his sons with water, dresses them in their new vestments, and anoints both the men and the altar and sanctuary-tent with oil. Then Moses, acting as a priest for the last time, slaughters a bull and two rams. The second ram is the ordination offering. After Aaron and his sons have laid their hands on its head, Moses slaughters it, then applies its blood, mixed with oil, to the corners of altar as well as to the right ears, right thumbs, and right big toes of Aaron and his sons. (See my post Tzav: Oil and Blood.) In other words, the priests are consecrated the same way as the altar, with anointing oil and blood.
After the blood-dabbing, the new priests hold out their hands, and Moses gives them the fat parts of the ram, its right thigh, a loaf of bread, and two cakes.
And he placed everything on the palms of Aaron and his sons, vayanef them as a tenufah before God.” (Leviticus/Vayikra 8:27)
vayanef (וַיָּנֶף) = and he waved, moved back and forth. (A form of the verb nuf, נוּף = move back and forth, wave, lift.)
tenufah (תְּנוּפָה) = wave-offering. (A noun derived from the root verb nuf, but often translated as “elevation offering” because the offering is usually lifted in the priest’s hands before being waved.)
This is the first tenufah in the Torah, but a tenufah is prescribed for many types of offerings in the book of Leviticus. The object lifted and waved before being given to God is often, but not always, the portion of an offering reserved for the priests to eat. In this instance, Moses appears to be guiding the hands of the new priests in the correct waving movements.
Ordination of Levites
Serving as priest is a full-time job in the Torah. Someone else has to cover the remaining work to keep the religion going: the Levites.
In the first two Torah portions of the book of Numbers, the Levites are given responsibility for disassembling the Tent of Meeting, transporting the pieces (as well as the sacred objects, which the priests have wrapped), and re-erecting the tent and courtyard—every time the people travel to a new campsite. They must also guard the tent from intruders, and assist the priests as requested.4
When the second temple in Jerusalem is erected in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Levites are divided into singers and musicians, gatekeepers, and temple servants.5 Levites are also assigned the duty of collecting tithes (under the supervision of priests).6
The Levites are ordained in this week’s Torah portion in Numbers, Beha-alotkha. While the priests’ ordination treats them like the altar, the Levites’ ordination treats them like pieces of an offering at the altar.
Both ceremonies begin with washing for ritual purification, but the Levites do it a different way from the priests.
And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Take the Levites from among the Israelites and purify them. And this is what you will do to purify them: Sprinkle water of exoneration over them, and make them pass a razor over all their flesh; and they should wash their clothes and purify themselves.” (Numbers 8:5-7)
Animal offerings are already pure, since the animals must be not only kosher, but also without any physical blemishes.7
“And you must bring forward the Levites in front of the Tent of Meeting, and assemble the whole community of Israelites. And you will offer the Levites in front of God, and the Israelites will lay their hands on the Levites.” (Numbers 8:9-10)
Anyone who offers an animal at the altar first lays a hand on its head. But here, all the Israelites lay hands on the Levites—making the men of Levi their offering to God.
“Then the Levites will lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, and make one of them an exoneration-offering and the other a rising-offering for God, to make atonement for the Levites. Then you shall station the Levites in front of Aaron and in front of his sons, veheinafta them tenufah for God.” (Numbers 8:12-13)
veheinafta (וְהֵנַפתָּ) = and you will wave; and you have waved. (Another form of the verb nuf.)
At their own ordination ceremony, the priests wave choice parts of their animal and grain offering. But at their subordinates’ ordination ceremony, the priests wave the Levites themselves—after the Israelites have laid hands on them. The living men in the tribe of Levi are a tenufah from the Israelites to God.
We can only speculate about how these men were waved back and forth by the three priests. According to Kohelet Rabbah, “Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Aaron [picked up and] waved twenty-two thousand Levites on one day.”8
“And you will segregate the Levites from among the Israelites, and the Levites will be mine. And after this, the Levites will come to serve the Tent of Meeting, when have purified them veheinafta them as a tenufah. Because they were definitively given to me from among the Israelites to replace the openers of all wombs, the firstborn if all the Israelites, for me to take them.” (Numbers 8:14-16)
This quote from God reaffirms that the firstborn sons of various clans in every tribe will no longer run the family’s religious practice. From the portion Beha-alotkha on, religious positions in Israelite society are the sole prerogatives of hereditary priests and Levites.
Rabbis, rather than priests, have been the Jewish religious authorities since 70 C.E., when the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Today any Jew can study and be certified as a rabbi, regardless of ancestry. The ordination ceremony includes smichah, in which established rabbis lay hands on the heads of the new rabbis.
There are also a number of supporting roles to keep Jewish communities going, from cantors and other service leaders to kosher butchers; these, too, depend on training rather than ancestry. When there is a ceremony to recognize people taking on these roles, it might also include smichah, but I have never heard of anyone waving the initiates back and forth.
Religious practices in the Torah are full of blood and slaughter. I thank God that Jews no longer have a temple with an altar, that we have moved on to addressing God through words rather than through burning dismembered animals. But I would like to see Levites being waved.
- Exodus 6:16-20.
- Genetic research has shown that most men called kohanim today do share a genetic marker. The leviyim do not, but the designation is still handed down through the generations by tradition.
- The ritual is prescribed in Exodus 29:4-29 and performed in Leviticus 8:1-9:24.
- Numbers 1:50-51. See my post Bemidbar & Naso: Dangerous Duty.
- Ezra 2:40-55, 3:10-11, 7:7, 7:24 and Nehemiah 7:1-46. (1 Chronicles 6:16-18 claims that King David appointed Levites to sing in front of the tent-sanctuary in Jerusalem before Solomon built the first temple, but Chronicles was written after the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, at least five centuries after the time of David. Rabbis in the Talmud claimed that some Levites were singers even in the book of Numbers, but there is no actual textual evidence. 1 Chron. 9:21-27 makes a similar specious claim regarding gatekeepers.)
- Nehemiah 10:38-40.
- See my post Emor: Flawed Worship.
- Kohelet Rabbah 12:7:1, written 700-950 C.E./, translated in www.sefaria.org.
Questioning Torah 