{"id":54507,"date":"2019-04-29T17:09:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T14:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=54507"},"modified":"2022-11-21T15:53:50","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T13:53:50","slug":"levites-living-on-the-margins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/levites-living-on-the-margins\/","title":{"rendered":"Levites Living On The Margins"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[796,363,512,362],"acf":{"old_id":"54507","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":49419,"related_cahpter":"208","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Let us learn from these wandering warriors the power of music and the strength that only matters when given away","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One final act of division has to be made in order for the settling of the land to be complete. The Levites have to find their place in society. Their portion is last, by definition, because Levi was destined to be a guest tribe, living on the margins. Only once the other tribes were settled could they become hosts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is worth reflecting on the role and function of these Levites, and perhaps to think what they have to teach us today. In fact, teaching us is one of the prime functions of this tribe &#8211; \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They shall teach Your laws to Jacob, and Your instruction to Israel<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d (Deuteronomy 33:10). And like any liminal figure living on the boundary of society &#8211; inside and outside of daily life, inside and outside of the sacred space &#8211; they can teach us more than those in the centre about what sacred and \u2018normal\u2019 mean.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one passage in the Torah, when the Levites are \u2018dedicated\u2019 to the (temporary) Temple and take on their special role as assistants there, God says that they are \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">given, given to Me from among the Israelites<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d (Numbers 8:16) The commentator Rashi cites a midrashic explanation for the repetition of the word, explaining \u201cThey are given to carry, and given to sing.\u201d I imagine them as muscular poets, or as warrior dervishes: various descriptions throughout the 929 chapters of the Bible have them carrying the Tabernacle from place to place, as zealous fighters in the name of God, as singing psalms to accompany the Temple worship, and helping out their priestly cousins in their ritual roles. At the end of the book of Judges, we\u2019ll read of a maverick Levite who was hired to serve an idol, and in Ezra (8:16), we\u2019ll see that some of the Levites didn\u2019t seem so keen to return from exile. The Levites aren\u2019t perfect holy men, but they neither are they part of regular society. Margins!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Levites had no property or land of their own, and subsisted on the taxes, the tithes, given to them by their fellow Israelites. This is the background to our chapter here. The 48 cities given to them allowed them to spread out, to collect these gifts from the farmers of the other tribes, and to become a link between the people and the ritual-locus around the Tabernacle, and later in Jerusalem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I suggest we can learn from them, because every exception (in midrashic logic) has something to teach us about the seemingly non-exceptional cases. Let us learn from the Levites the freedom of landlessness, of wandering, of trust. Let us learn the power of music that accompanies, supports, invites and creates. Let us learn the strength that only matters when given away, supporting spiritual structures. Let us learn to teach, by example, always.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>image: teta.co.il<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":54508,"id":54508,"title":"jo21-levites","filename":"jo21-levites.jpeg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/jo21-levites.jpeg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/levites-living-on-the-margins\/jo21-levites\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jo21-levites","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":54507,"date":"2019-04-29 14:08:48","modified":"2022-08-10 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