The Tribes Today - Kohens, Levis & Yisraels
by Jacqueline Shields
The Holy
Temple was destroyed millenia ago, but Conservative and Orthodox Jews still acknowledge
the three-fold division of ancient Israel into Kohanim, Leviim and Yisraelim. Reform Jews do not believe any congregant should have a different status
than another, and therefore do not acknowledge these divisions.
These groupings began with the division of the Jewish
nation among the twelve children of Jacob, one of whom was Levi. The tribe of Levi was designated for a special
role of Divine service. When the Torah addresses the Levites at the beginning of Numbers,
they are set apart from the rest of the Israelites. God tells Moses not to include
them in the census of the tribes, and the Torah lists no chief as their
leader. Their function is not to defend the camp or participate in the
conquest of the land, but to guard the Tabernacle from human defilement, "Any outsider who encroaches shall be put
to death" (Numbers 1:51).
The Levites are counted in their own census, and their
numbers are far smaller than those of any one of the 12
tribes. The Levites were the smallest of the tribes. Pharaoh permitted this clan to be Israel's spiritual leaders as opposed to laboring
as slaves in Egypt. According
to Midrash,
to frustrate Pharaoh's will, God made each tribe increase proportionally
to its suffering, but the Levites did not suffer as much as the other
tribes, and therefore did not multiply to such a great extent.
Some Rabbis contend that God excluded the Levites from the general census because
God foresaw that unlike their brethren, they would be superior to their
peers. They would not despair at the terrifying reports of the spies
returning from Canaan (Deuteronomy);
therefore, they would not die in the wilderness, but live to enter the
Promised Land. Had they been listed in the general census, the angel
of death would have killed them with the other Israelites.
Maimonides portrays the Levites as a universal ideal for people of pure faith,
ready to abandon the world and cultivate a life of inner tranquility
and supreme wisdom. According to Maimonides, every individual whose
spirit moves him and whose intelligence gives him the understanding
to withdraw from the world to serve God and to know God, and who walks
upright in the manner in which God made him, is totally consecrated,
and God will grant him/her a place in the World to Come.
From the tribe of Levi, Aaron and his descendents were singled out to be the priests and serve in
the Temple (see Exodus 28).
Originally, God intended that the first-born of every Jewish family
would be a Kohen, the priest who would serve as that family's representative
to the Holy Temple (Exodus 13:2, Exodus 24:5). The decision
to make the descendants of Aaron serve as priests, however, occurred
after the Golden Calf incident
at Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:26).
At Sinai, only the Levites remained loyal to G-d by not worshipping
the Golden Calf, and therefore the Levis were designated as the priestly
tribe.
Today, Leviim are believed to be the direct patrilineal
descendents of Levi, while Kohanim are Leviim who descend directly,
through their fathers, from Aaron. Other Jews are assumed to come from
one of the other tribes and are called, simply, Yisraelim. A convert to Judaism takes the status as a Yisrael. The only valid method of being
a Levite (or Kohen) is to have an unbroken tradition, passed from generation
to generation, stretching back to the time of Moses. In many Jewish
communities, meticulous records were kept throughout the generations
to ensure that ancestral lines remained clear. If one has no clear evidence,
such as a family tradition, of descending from Levi or Aaron one should
assume he/she is a Yisrael. Traditionally, women adopt the status of their husband, thus if a bat Kohen (daughter
of a father who is a Kohen) marries a Yisrael, she and her children
are Yisraelim.
Today in many synagogues,
the first two aliyot (people called up to the Torah) are given
to a Kohen and a Levi. Yisraelim, the majority of Jews, are called to
the Torah only after the second aliyah.
In old cemeteries, a pair of hands symbolizing the
priestly benediction often marks the tombstone of a Kohen, while the
grave of a Levi, who poured water over the hands of the priests before
the recitation of the blessing, is signified by a tilted pitcher.
According to the Talmud,
the number "3" is a basic pattern of the revelation experience.
In the third month of the year, Sivan,
God revealed at Sinai a text divided into three sections, Torah, Prophets and Writings to a nation divided into three groups, Priests (Kohens), Levites and
Israelites through Moses, the third child after Miriam and Aaron, on the third day of Israel's preparation for revelation.
Sources: Aish Ha'Torah;
Rabbi Clinton, Baruch , Project
Genesis; Rabbi Schorsch, Ismar. "Some Blessed to Serve God,"
Jewish Theological
Seminary |