By Rabbi Shloimie Lindenbaum
בני בנימין למשפחתם…אלה בני דן (פרק כו פסוק לח-מד)
The Torah details a count of each tribe with the number of families [in the first generation] in a tribe and the total number of members. The tribe of Binyamin is counted as starting with seven major families, and in ספר בראשית, Binyamin is said to have had ten sons. Dan, however, is said to have had only one son, and here too the tribe of Dan is listed as having started with only one family. In addition, the Gemara in סוטה says that this one son of Dan was deaf. The Chofetz Chaim points out that anyone who saw the families of Dan and Binyamin in the first generation would have assumed with certainty that Binyamin’s tribe will grow and flourish quickly and vastly, while Dan’s would take a while to build up. However, the numbers of individuals in each tribe, as of our Parsha, are startling. Binyamin has 45,600 members and Dan has 64,400, that is almost 20,000 more people after just a few generations! We see from here that when Hashem wants a tribe to grow bigger, they will, regardless of their chances statistically, and so too if He wants a different tribe to not be as big. This applies to all areas of life as well, many times a person can be in a position where it seems obvious that they will have a hard time financially compared to others, and yet Hashem can flip the fortunes easily. Everything is in His Hand.
יפקד ה’ אלקי הרוחת לכל בשר איש על העדה (פרק כז פסוק טז)
When Moshe is informed by Hashem that he will not enter ארץ ישראל, he asks that Hashem appoint a worthy and qualified leader in his stead. He phrases his request, “the G-d of spirits of every individual should appoint a leader over the congregation”. R’ Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev would say that Moshe specifically referred to Hashem in this context as the G-d of everyone to indicate that just like Hashem loves each member of כלל ישראל equally so too should the new leader be equally caring, responsible, and loving for every individual in כלל ישראל. R’ Yitzchak Zilberstein quotes a story that illustrates a leader’s responsibility to think about each person in our nation. The Tchebiner Rav, Rav Dov Ber Weidenfeld (1881-1965), lived in Yerushalayim and had many beloved students. When his daughter got engaged, he was going to travel for his new son-in-law’s aufruf which was to take place in a different country. One of his close students was a renowned chazan and offered to travel along for the aufruf to enhance the davening with his tremendous talent. The Tchebiner Rav accepted this offer, and the student came along. When Shabbos came, the Rav told the student, “You will not be davening with me this Shabbos.” To his student’s surprise, the Rav explained, “I heard that there is an orphan who lives here who will be having his aufruf in a different shul this Shabbos. If you came to daven by me, the whole city will turn out to hear you and the orphan will be left with a practically empty shul for his simcha. You will go daven in the orphan’s shul and that way the city can hear your beautiful prayer and the orphan will have an honorable simcha.” Such was the concern of a Torah leader for each individual Jew, even one that he had no connection to previously. This is the quality that Moshe felt was essential for his successor.
