NUM233 Guard the Beis HaMikdash. This watchfulness is in order to accentuate the glory and honor of the Beis HaMikdash, and not because we fear an enemy and must protect the Beis HaMikdash from harm, God forbid. An aspect of the glory of the Beis HaMikdash is that it always has guards around it, as do palaces of great kings of flesh and blood. The more the honor and glory of the Beis HaMikdash are accentuated, the more awe it will instill into the hearts of those who come there. When we enter the Beis HaMikdash to pray for our needs and for forgiveness from the Master of All, our hearts will soften and we will be able to do teshuvah.

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NUM234 A non-Kohen shall not perform the avodah in the Beis HaMikdash. See [[NUM239]] Numbers 18:23 Levites CHINUCH 248-9

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NUM235 Redeem firstborn sons. See [[EXOD174]] Exodus 13:2 firstborn CHINUCH 17

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NUM236 The goal of parental instruction is the development of the child within the framework of a moral and religious tradition. The child thereby becomes a link between the past and the future. Nevertheless, the child's moral instruction is also crucial to the child's ability to function as an informed moral agent in society. As Gersonides observed, when the parent-child relationship functions properly, when the family serves as a conduit for moral values, society as a whole is enriched and improved. The course of study that the parent is to teach the child is a course in the art of living as an individual in society. The goals of the course are to guide the child from ignorance to wisdom, from moral neutrality to virtue, from dependency to independence, from infancy to maturity. The parental obligation to prepare the child to function as an independent adult in an inter-dependent society is reflected in the few rabbinic statements that explicitly list the obligations of a parent to the child. According to a talmudic text: "The father is obligated to circumcise his son, to redeem him open (if he is a firstborn, see Numbers 18:15), to teach him Torah, to have him wed, and to teach him a craft. Some say, to teach him to swim as well. Rabbi Judah said: He did who does not teach his son a craft… is as though he taught him to steal." Kiddushin 32a. According to a variant reading of this text, a father is also obligated to teach his son practical citizenship (yishuv medinah). Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Hayyim Horovitz and Israel Rabin, eds. (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1960), "Bo," chap. 18, p.73.

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NUM237 Do not redeem a kosher animal's first offspring. The firstling of a kosher animal must be given to a Kohen, as discussed earlier, See [[EXOD174]] Exodus 13:2 firstborn CHINUCH 17

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NUM238 See [[LEV25]] Leviticus 2:13 salt SINAI1 297

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NUM239 The Levites shall serve in the Beis HaMikdash. It is a king's honor that he has a select group of attendants who are always near to him, serving him on permanent basis. Only those who he chooses personally are allowed to remain so close to him all the time. If every day, someone new were to serve as his personal attendant, and if the group, closest to him changed, it would be a blow to his dignity, for being in his presence is a special privilege that should not be given to just anyone.

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NUM240 Take the first tithe for the Levites. Having chosen the tribe of Levi to serve in the Beis HaMikdash on a permanent and consistent basis, Hashem kindly gives them their sustenance in an honorable manner. It is the way of the world that a king's closest assistants have all their needs provided for them, so that they are free to devote all of their time and energy to the important task of serving the king and furthering his interest in every possible way. Also, owing to their special status, the Levites are given a larger portion of the land’s produce than what is taken by the remaining tribes. After all, there are twelve tribes, so one could expect that the Levites would receive only one-twelfth of the produce. Nevertheless, Hashem increases their portion, for the portion of the Levites amounts to one-tenth, and they incur no expenses that reduce their portion. When someone gives of his produce to sustain Hashem's attendance in the Beis HaMikdash, the blessings of Hashem will rest upon all that he has.

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NUM241 The Levites shall give a tithe of their tithe to the Kohanim. Hashem chose the tribe of Levi to serve in the Beis HaMikdash on a permanent and constant basis., but He chose one of them in particular, Aharon, to be the Kohen, chief of staff over everyone else. Aharon and his descendants are the Kohanim for all time, and they, too, are permanently appointed to stand before Hashem in the Beis HaMikdash on a steady basis. In fact, the main avodah in the Beis HaMikdash is the task of the Kohanim. The Levites are secondary to the Kohanim and are there to assist them. Since the Kohanim perform the main avodah in the House of our God, they receive twenty-four gifts. The Levites, as assistants of the Kohanim, also merit good without toil in the form of ma’aser rishon from the rest of the tribes of Israel, from which the Levites have nourishment. So that the Levites appreciate that their goodly portion is due only to their service in the House of God, they are commanded to give one-tenth of their portion to the Kohanim-- those who attend to the main avodah in the House of God. Thereby, the Levites will recognize that there are others over them, and above everyone is God Himself. Also, this mitzvah provides merit and honor to the Levites, for they are not denied the mitzvah of giving ma’aser. They, too, have a share in providing sustenance to the Kohanim.

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NUM242 Recall the definition of humility we developed in the chapter on that soul-trait: humility means occupying your appropriate space, neither too much or too little. The Torah provides a story about order that links clearly to humility. It describes how the people of Israel were told to organize themselves in formation for camping and traveling in the desert: "The Israelites shall camp with each person near the banner, under the flag of their ancestral house. They shall camp at a specified distance around the Tent of Meeting" [this verse]. We read in a midrash that when God told Moses that the Jews were to be arranged in this specific formation, Moses complained that if he specified such an organization, there would be protest. "If I tell Yehuda to camp in the east, they will say they want the south, and so it will be with each and every tribe" (Midrash Rabbah). This story underlies the human tendency to rebel against imposed order. It doesn't matter if the order that is being forced to foisted on us is good, right, useful, or sensible. As long as our "rightful space" is being imposed, we don't want it: "If I tell Yehuda to camp in the east, they will say they want the south." Not that the south is necessarily better than the east or the north, it's just not what you told me to do, and that's the point. Sound familiar? Disorder is often the child of a rebellious ego that resists humbly occupying a rightful space. All that it whispers in your inner ear can be reduced to "I want" or "I don't want." I want to have fun, cleaning up after myself is no fun. I want to keep accumulating stuff, and organizing it is not something I enjoy. I want my leisure, and setting things in order is work. Or… I don't want to take responsibility for my stuff. I don't want to do that. I don't have to. No matter what follows the word "I," there is no mistaking that the subject is "me." Hence the antidote here it would be humility. All the methods for cultivating humility that the Mussar Masters have formulated over the centuries come into play here. … Order is, after all, a kind of a submission of will, and humility fosters submission in place of the ego's self–assertion.

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