Bekhorot 5a — the Talmud in English

And they ceased -

after the redemption by the Levites - from becoming sanctified until their entry into the Land.

And we raise a difficulty:

Granted, Resh Lakish, as he stated his reason

because it is written: “And it shall be, when He brings you ... and you shall cause to pass,” and it is necessarily the case that they ceased until their entry into the Land.

But according to Rabbi Yohanan, what is the reason!?

Rabbi Elazar said: I saw Rabbi Yohanan in a dream; I say that it is a favorable matter

I saw Rabbi Yohanan in my dream, and I understood that I was saying on that day a favorable matter] to reconcile his words; and so I say:

The verse says

(Numbers 3): “And I, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel in place of every firstborn, the opener of the womb, among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be Mine. For every firstborn is Mine; on the day I struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified every firstborn in Israel, from man to beast;

they shall be Mine

I am the Lord”—and we learn:

In the state in which they are, they shall be.

And

we raise a difficulty to

Rabbi Yohanan:

This verse,

“And it shall be, when He brings you ...

and you shall cause to pass,”

which implies that firstborns became sanctified only upon their entry into the Land, and although they became sanctified in the wilderness, they became sanctified and ceased,

what does he do with it

how does he explain this verse!?

And we answer:

That

verse

is needed for that which the school of Rabbi Ishmael taught: Perform this mitzva

immediately

because of which you will enter the Land.

Rav Mordekhai said to Rav Ashi: You have learned it in this manner; we have learned it oppositely

You learned the dispute of Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish in the wording in which you learned it, whereas we learned their dispute in reverse; and this is how we learned it:

Rabbi Yohanan says: Firstborns did not become sanctified in the wilderness, and Resh Lakish said: Firstborns became sanctified in the wilderness.

He said to him

Rav Ashi to Rav Mordekhai:

And

when

you reversed

the refutation as well

that Rabbi Yohanan raised against Resh Lakish, and you teach: Resh Lakish raised an objection to Rabbi Yohanan;

and

so

you reversed this statement of Rabbi Elazar as well

who said: “I saw Rabbi Yohanan in my dream,” whereas you teach: “I saw Resh Lakish in my dream”!?

He said to him

Rav Mordekhai to Rav Ashi:

In fact, according to Rabbi Yohanan, firstborns became sanctified in the wilderness, and according to Resh Lakish, firstborns did not become sanctified in the wilderness. And what Rabbi Yohanan said,

“They did not become sanctified

in the wilderness,” this is his intention:

They did not need to become sanctified

with a renewed sanctity, because they were already sanctified from the womb.

If so, this is the same as ours

If so, even according to Rav Mordekhai they disagree in the same way as they disagree according to our version!?

And we answer:

He teaches us

Rav Mordekhai that

a person is obligated to state [a matter] in the language of his teacher,

and his teacher used wording opposite to ours, although his intention was as we said.

The minister Kontrukos asked Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai:

It is written concerning the counting of the Levites in the wilderness: “And these are the names of the sons of Gershon ... their counted ones, according to the number of every male from one month and upward, their counted ones: seven thousand five hundred ... and of Kehat ... according to the number of every male from one month and upward: eight thousand six hundred ... of Merari ... and their counted ones, according to the number of every male from one month and upward: six thousand two hundred ... all the counted ones of the Levites whom Moses counted ... twenty-two thousand.”

In the detailed [counts] of the Levites,

when you add the number of those counted among the sons of Kehat to that of the sons of Gershon, and that of the sons of Merari to them,

you find

the total of all of them:

twenty-two thousand three hundred—

But

in their total,

in the summation of the number of all the Levites together, you

find

in Scripture only

twenty-two thousand; and

if so,

three hundred

that are extra among the Levites

where did they go!?

He said to him

Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai to the minister:

Those three hundred

that are extra,

[were] firstborns

of the Levites

they were,

and therefore they cannot be included in the count, for the principal purpose of the count was to redeem against them the firstborns of the children of Israel;

and a firstborn

of a Levite

does not displace a firstborn

of Israel.

The Gemara asks:

What is the reason

that a firstborn son of a Levite does not displace the sanctity of an Israelite firstborn?

He said

explained

Abaye:

For

it is enough for the firstborn that he displace

the

sanctity of himself,

but he should not displace along with it the sanctity of an Israelite firstborn.

It is written in the portion of Pekudei (Exodus 38): “And the silver of those counted of the assembly [this is the silver collected from the half-shekels given by the children of Israel when they counted them] was one hundred talents and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels, according to the sacred shekel. [And Scripture explains how:] A beka per head, half a shekel according to the sacred shekel, for everyone who passed among those counted, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty. And of the one hundred talents of silver he cast the sockets of the Sanctuary and the sockets of the curtain, one hundred sockets for one hundred talents, one talent for a socket. And of the one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five he made hooks for the pillars.”

And he further asked

Kontrukos Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai:

In the collection of silver,

that is, if you calculate how much silver Moses collected from the half-shekels [sela'im] given by the children of Israel,

you find two hundred and one talents and eleven maneh—

For

the

written

here, that the collection was:

“A beka per head, half a shekel according to the sacred shekel,”

and when you calculate it for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty, you find the stated number—

How so: A talent is equal to sixty maneh, and a maneh is equal to one hundred zuz, which are twenty-five shekels [four zuz each]; it follows that each talent is equal to one thousand five hundred shekels, which are three thousand half-shekels, and one hundred talents are three hundred thousand half-shekels. Thus, from six hundred thousand of the children of Israel—each of whom gave half a shekel, that is, six hundred thousand half-shekels—you find two hundred talents—

Add to them the half-shekels collected from those exceeding six hundred thousand, and you find: three thousand half-shekels, which are an additional talent; and another five hundred and fifty half-shekels, which are two hundred and seventy-five shekels, which are one thousand one hundred zuz, which are eleven maneh.

And

whereas

in the giving of the silver

for the work of the Tabernacle by Moses, you

find

only

one hundred talents, as it is written

“And there were one hundred talents of the silver for casting ...”—

And therefore, was

Moses, your teacher, a thief, or a gambler

a dice-player]

or was he not expert in calculations,

so that

he gave half

one hundred talents]

and took half, and

even

he did not return a full half,

that is, it was not enough that he took for himself half of what he collected, but even a full half—which is one hundred and one-half talents and five and one-half maneh—he did not give, but only one hundred talents!?

He said

he answered

him

Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai:

Moses our teacher was a faithful treasurer, and

he was also

expert in calculations, and

nevertheless

a sacred maneh was doubled

and contained two hundred zuz, and a talent was equal to sixty sacred maneh, and the calculation therefore came out exact, together with the addition mentioned in the Torah: “And of the one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five he made hooks for the pillars.”

Consider this, Rav Ahai

Rav Ahai raised a difficulty concerning this]:

What difficulty does it present to him

to that minister? Surely Scripture does not say that Moses gave no more than the one hundred talents; rather, Scripture says:

“And there were one hundred talents of the silver for casting

the sockets of the Sanctuary,” and one can say that

these

one hundred talents Moses gave

for casting, and the others into the treasury

and the remainder that he collected from the people Moses placed in the treasury of the consecrated funds.

And we answer:

Another verse says

“And the silver of those counted of the assembly was one hundred talents,”

so Moses mentioned only one hundred talents, and the minister saw in this an omission of one hundred talents.

The Gemara asks:

And as for what he said to him

Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, that

“a sacred maneh was doubled”—from where did he derive it

from where did Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai know it? -

If you say, from it,

perhaps you will say that it is proved from its context,

for

there

it is written

“And of the one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five

shekels]

he made hooks

for the pillars,”

for here

which in total are]

seventy-one maneh, —

And Scripture counted them only in detail,

that is, Scripture did not make talents from those excess shekels;

and if it were so

that a sacred maneh was not doubled, since sixty maneh make one talent, then

it should have written: one hundred and one talents and eleven maneh

in order to make the calculation in talents, just as it did for the one hundred talents—

Rather,

necessarily,

from the fact that Scripture counted them only in detail, infer from it: A sacred maneh was doubled,

and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels do not amount even to one talent, which is three thousand shekels.

The Gemara rejects the necessity:

Perhaps it counts general totals in talents, but it does not count particulars in talents

perhaps Scripture joined shekels into talents only when the calculation reached one hundred talents, but when it was necessary to express less than one hundred talents, Scripture did not calculate them in talents.

Rather, from here

we can learn that a sacred maneh was doubled, as it is stated (Exodus 38):

“And the copper of the waving

which the children of Israel waved as an offering for the work of the Tabernacle]

was seventy talents and two thousand four hundred shekels”—

for here

the excess over the talents amounts in total to]

ninety-six maneh,

and

nevertheless

Scripture counted them only in detail

Scripture did not make sixty maneh into an additional talent] and did not say: “Seventy-one talents and nine hundred shekels”—

And

infer from it: A sacred maneh was doubled,

and two thousand four hundred shekels do not amount even to one talent, which is three thousand shekels.

The Gemara rejects it:

Perhaps it counts a large particular in talents,

whereas

it does not count a small particular in talents,

perhaps Scripture sums shekels according to talents when it reaches a total of one hundred maneh, or at least a large particular of ten talents; but when the sum does not even reach ten talents, Scripture does not calculate a small particular of talents, that is, individual talents that do not reach ten talents.

Rather, Rav Hisda said: From here

we learn that a sacred maneh was doubled, for it is written in Ezekiel 45:

“And the shekel

which is the sela, shall be]

twenty gera

a type [of coin]; and Scripture adds to explain how many shekels the maneh shall be:]

twenty shekels,

and [another]

twenty-five shekels,

and [another]

fifteen shekels

a total of sixty shekels]

the maneh shall be for you.”