[Avodah] The Census Numbers In Bmidbar

[Akiva Miller]

.
Way back when Hashem put confusing numbers in His Torah, He knew exactly
when and where R' Jay F. Shachter would post:

> Obviously a man would normally know exactly whether or not
> he was a firstborn.  But how would a man know whether he was
> 20 years old?  He could know that only approximately.
> ...
> even if a man's parents told him on what day of the month he
> was born (and I think that is implausible, there is no record
> of anyone in the Bible except Pharaoh caring about, or even
> knowing, his date of birth) and in what season he was born,
> how would he know whether he was born in the 11th month or
> in the 12th month?  Or in the 13th month? Obviously the
> number of men in a tribe who were over the age of 20 -- in
> contrast with the number of men in a tribe who were firstborn --
> was a number that could be known only approximately.

While I concede that "there is no record of anyone in the Bible except
Pharaoh caring about, or even knowing, his date of birth", as they say, "lo
ra'inu aino raayah". Lack of evidence proves nothing.

And even if you are correct that they didn't know their birthdays, exact
information might have been available in other ways. I'm referring to
various midrashim (which I'm not going to bother looking them up right now)
about the census being conducted with the help of a Bas Kol which announced
the number of babies, or some such data.

But let's not get sidetracked by midrashim. Let's look at the pesukim:

3:39 - There were 22,000 levi males older than one month.
3:43 - There were 22,273 firstborn males older than one month.
3:46 - There was a surplus of 273 firstborns over the leviim.
3:50 - The 273 firstborns were redeemed for 1365 shekalim.
(Note that 273 x 5 =1365, and 3:47 gives the rate of 5 shekalim each.)

I concede that a man of Frederick Douglass' age would be unlikely to know
his birth date. But we're not talking about whether an adult would know
such a detail from years back. We're talking about whether his *parents*
would know the date of an event only one month past! "Well, let's see. He
was born on Erev Shabbos, about 4 four - maybe four and a half - weeks ago.
Yep! That makes him 32 days old today."

While I do not claim this to be any sort of proof that all the new parents
remembered accurately, the likelihood is not nearly as low as you'd like to
think.

But even so...

> I have been hearing this question all my life, and I do not
> understand why anyone has ever asked this question, because
> the answer is obvious. I can only conclude that the people
> who have asked this question, have not thought about it for
> more than 30 minutes.

So, if you have indeed been thinking about this for more than 30 minutes,
please tell me what you think of the following:

As you see it, the census came up with a total of 22,000 leviim, which not
only *looks* like an approximation, but according to you they knew and
understood that it *was* an approximation. Okay. The next step is that they
compared the approximate 22,000 leviim to the 22,273 firstborn, right?

So, can you explain: If all the other numbers were blatant approximations,
how did they come up with an apparently precise number for the firstborns?

And: If they knew that 22,000 was only an approximation, wouldn't a
reasonable estimate of the difference have been 250 or 300 or something?
Why on earth would they come up with a number like 273 - and be willing to
pay five shekel each! - if it was not precise?

Akiva Miller

DISCLAIMER: There are several countings in the Torah, and they have many
numbers which appear to be rounded. I am not claiming that none of those
are rounded. My only claim is that this one particular number [22,000
leviim] is indeed precise, and not rounded, and that this is proven by the
22273-22000=273 arithmetic. In my opinion, this lends much credence to the
idea that the other numbers in this chapter are also precise, but it is not
a rigorous proof for those other numbers.
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