Behaalotecha

[23] Moses asked Hobab son of Reuel (elsewhere called Jethro) the Midianite to come with the Israelites, promising to be generous with him, but he replied that he would return to his native land.

1 Chronicles 23:3–5 reports that of 38,000 Levite men aged 30 and up, 24,000 were in charge of the work of the Temple in Jerusalem, 6,000 were officers and magistrates, 4,000 were gatekeepers, and 4,000 praised God with instruments and song.

And 2 Chronicles 5:12 reports at the inauguration of Solomon's Temple, Levites sang dressed in fine linen, holding cymbals, harps, and lyres, to the east of the altar, and with them 120 priests blew trumpets.

"[60] Exodus 12:5–6, Leviticus 23:5, and Numbers 9:3 and 5, and 28:16 direct "Passover" to take place on the evening of the fourteenth of אָבִיב‎, Aviv (נִיסָן‎, Nisan in the Hebrew calendar after the Babylonian captivity).

[65] And later, God used the term to refer to Caleb,[66] Moses,[67] David,[68] Isaiah,[69] Eliakim, son of Hilkiah,[70] Israel,[71] Nebuchadnezzar,[72] Zerubbabel,[73] the Branch,[74] and Job.

In Deuteronomy 24:8–9, Moses warned the Israelites in the case of skin disease (צָּרַעַת‎, tzara'at) diligently to observe all that the priests would teach them, remembering what God did to Miriam.

In 2 Kings 7:3–20, part of the haftarah for parashah Metzora, the story is told of four "leprous men" (מְצֹרָעִים‎, m'tzora'im) at the gate during the Arameans' siege of Samaria.

The parashah is discussed in these rabbinic sources from the era of the Mishnah and the Talmud:[76] Rabbi Levi taught that God gave the section on the Menorah, Numbers 8:1–4, on the day that the Israelites set up the Tabernacle.

The Gemara reported that Rabbi Joḥanan interpreted Deuteronomy 31:26, "Take this book of the law," to refer to the time after the Torah had been joined from its several parts.

[88] A midrash taught that the words of Psalm 11:5, "The Lord tries the righteous; but the wicked and him who loves violence His soul hates," bear on God's instruction in Numbers 8:6, "Take the Levites."

[100] Elsewhere, the Sifre read Numbers 8:25–26, "and shall serve no more; but shall minister with their brethren in the tent of meeting, to keep the charge, but they shall do no manner of service," to teach that the Levite went back to the work of closing the doors and carrying out the tasks assigned to the sons of Gershom.

And as Numbers 9:1 addressed the Passover offering, which the Israelites were to bring on the 14th of the month, the Gemara concluded that one should expound the laws of a holiday two weeks before the festival.

[109] Rabbi Jose the Galilean taught that the "certain men who were unclean by the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day" in Numbers 9:6 were those who bore Joseph's coffin, as implied in Genesis 50:25 and Exodus 13:19.

The midrash deduced that when in Numbers 11:1, the people murmured, speaking evil, and God sent fire to devour part of the camp, all those earlier 70 elders had been burned up.

The midrash continued that the earlier 70 elders were consumed like Nadab and Abihu, because they too acted frivolously when (as reported in Exodus 24:11) they beheld God and inappropriately ate and drank.

The Gemara reasoned that if Eldad and Medad prophesied about the quail or Gog and Magog, then Joshua asked Moses to forbid them because their behavior did not appear seemly, like a student who issues legal rulings in the presence of his teacher.

The Gemara further reasoned that according to those who said that Eldad and Medad prophesied about the quail or Gog and Magog, Moses' response in Numbers 11:28, "Would that all the Lord's people were prophets," made sense.

Rabbi Nathan taught that Miriam was standing alongside Zipporah when (as recounted in Numbers 11:27) the youth ran and told Moses that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp.

Moses noted that even though the Shechinah spoke with the Israelites on only one definite, appointed time (at Mount Sinai), God nonetheless instructed in Exodus 19:10, "Be ready against the third day: come not near a woman."

A person affected by skin disease (מְּצֹרָע‎, metzora) is accounted as dead, for Numbers 12:10–12 says, "And Aaron looked on Miriam, and behold, she was leprous (מְצֹרָעַת‎, metzora'at).

And Rashi reported an interpretation by Rabbi Moses HaDarshan (the preacher) that since the Levites were submitted in atonement for the firstborn who had practiced idolatry when they worshipped the Golden Calf (in Exodus 32), and Psalm 106:28 calls idol worship "sacrifices to the dead," and in Numbers 12:12 Moses called one afflicted with skin disease (צָּרַעַת‎, tzara'at) "as one dead," and Leviticus 14:8 required those afflicted with skin disease to shave, therefore God required the Levites too to shave.

[149] Reading the instruction of Numbers 8:7 with regard to the Levites, "and let them cause a razor to pass over all their flesh," Abraham ibn Ezra taught that they did not shave the corners of their beards (so as not to violate Leviticus 21:5).

After doing so, people can learn that such description was only metaphorical, and that the truth is too fine, too sublime, too exalted, and too remote from the ability and powers of human minds to grasp.

Bamberger reported that the inability of Moses to handle these cases on his own troubled the Rabbis because they relied on a worldview in which the entire Torah was revealed at Sinai with no need for subsequent revelations.

[155] Reading the account of Eldad and Medad in Numbers 11:26–29, Gunther Plaut wrote that Moses pointedly rejected a narrow interpretation of prophetic privilege and shared his authority as leader.

[162] According to both Maimonides and Sefer ha-Chinuch, there are 3 positive and 2 negative commandments in the parashah:[163] Some Jews read "at 50 years old one offers counsel," reflecting the retirement age for Levites in Numbers 8:25, as they study Pirkei Avot chapter 6 on a Sabbath between Passover and Rosh Hashanah.

Applying the second rule, the same words in Numbers 9:2 mean that the priests needed to bring the Passover offering "in its proper time," even on a Sabbath.

[168] The Passover Haggadah, in the korech section of the Seder, quotes the words "they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs" from Numbers 9:11 to support Hillel's practice of combining matzah and maror together in a sandwich.

[172] The characterization of Moses as God's "trusted servant" in Numbers 12:7 finds reflection shortly after the beginning of the Kedushah section in the Sabbath morning (Shacharit) Amidah prayer.

[173] In the Yigdal hymn, the eighth verse, "God gave His people a Torah of truth, by means of His prophet, the most trusted of His household," reflects Numbers 12:7–8.