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כ״ג בתשרי ה׳תשפ״ב

Mitzvah 509) That the Priests and Levites should serve in groups in the temple.

Parshas Shoftim

“And when a Levite comes… and he shall come with all the desire of his heart to the place which Hashem will choose!” (Devarim 18:6)

It is a positive commandment that the Priests and Levites should serve in the temple in “watches”. This means that they should be divided into separate groups so that not everyone is occupying themselves with the holy service simultaneously. The only exception to this is on the festivals when everyone performed the service together because of the happiness of the festival. In the book of Divrei Hayamim (Part one 24:26) it is described how King David and the prophet Shmuel divided them, when they created twenty-four groups of Priests and twenty-four groups of Levites so that each group would serve two weeks each year. However, a Priest who has an offering of his own, may come whenever he wants and perform the service for his own offering.

Amongst the roots of this commandment are that since we know that if the responsibility for the service is shouldered by a small group of people it will be performed correctly without laziness, despair or argument, whereas a responsibility shouldered by everyone without specific people taking responsibility, will end up with one set of people giving the job to others and sometimes they will get upset with each other. During the festivals, however, because of the rejoicing they were commanded that everyone should be equal.

Amongst the laws of this commandment are that in each group there was one person who was appointed to be the head of the group and he would divide the group into smaller groups each of which would be responsible for one day. These smaller groups would also have heads who would give out the services and give jobs to each man. Every Shabbos they would change the groups and there was a rotation for whose turn it would be each week.

The earlier prophets decreed that there would also be twenty-four groups from the rest of Klal Yisrael made up of righteous G-d fearing men who would be called the “Anshei Ma’amad”. These would be the representatives of Klal Yisrael to stand over the public offerings offered on behalf of the entire Klal Yisrael, as Chazal said “And is it possible that the offering of a person should be brought up without him standing over it?” The members of the ma’amad who lived near Yerushalayim would enter the temple. All of them, whether they lived in Yerushalayim or other places, would gather in the synagogues and pray abundantly, and would fast on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of their designated week.

This commandment applies to males of the Priests and Levites when the temple was standing. One who does not allow his friend to serve when he wants during the festival has transgressed this commandment.

Rabbi Simlay renewed: 613 commandments spoken to Moshe, 365 Negative Commandments like the days of the sun, and 248 Positive Commandments like organs of the person.(Macos 23) 1

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Last days lessons Subject: Daily Mitzvah
Mitzvah 269) The commandment to sanctify the descendants of Aharon
Mitzvah 265) That a Kohein who has purified himself on that day may not serve in the Temple
Mitzvah 264) Kohanim becoming impure for their relatives
Mitzvah 263) That the Cohanim (Priests) should not become impure with the impurity caused by a dead body
Mitzvah 262) Not to follow in the ways of the nations
Mitzvah 260) Not to curse a parent
Mitzvah 259) The commandment of correcting scales, weights and measurements

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