Parshat Bamidbar
during the lineage of the family of Levi, it says "These are the generations (children) of Aharon and Moshe..." and it goes on to list the children of Aharon, and not the children of Moshe.
Rashi tells us that we learn from the fact that it calls the children of Aharon as being also the children of Moshe that one who teaches someone else Torah, it is as if that person is his child. So the children of Aharon were also the children of Moshe, because Moshe taught them Torah.
That is very nice, but what about the actual children of Moshe? Why do they not get mentioned at all? It is listing the children of all the Levite families, so why not list Moshe's children as well?
We did not have an answer for this. I saw one answer about how Moshe's children had stayed behind with Yisro in Midian. I do nto remember why, but I did not like that answer, as they are still Moshe's children and should have been mentioned...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I think it's self evident that Moshe's biological children were not of leadership material and therefore were not mentioned. Nadav and Avihu were suppose to replace Moshe and Aharon, not one (or both) of Moshe's children. (I recall reading a midrash somewhere that Moshe asked Hashem to appoint his children as successors to the throne but Hashem turned Moshe down for this very reason.)
I have seen that medrash as well. It is true that they were not leadership material, but neither were many of the children of the families of levi who were mentioned...
True, but the Levis that were mentioned, albeit were not of leadership material, had a communal task. Moshe's children did not.
I think it was Gershon who stayed behind, but I need to check it and I'll post a followup comment later.
Post a Comment