16 Nisan · Yahrzeit
Levi ben Yaakov Avinu (12 Tribes)
Levi ben Yaakov Avinu - the 3rd son of Yaakov Avinu and Leah Imeinu
Yahrzeit - 16 Nissan
Burial place - Kfar Arbel, Israel
He was the grandfather of Aaron HaKohen and Moshe Rabbeinu, as well as the founder of the tribe of the Levites and
He was born in Charan on 16 Nissan in the year 2194 (Bereishit 29:34; Yalkut Shimoni, Shemot 162; Seder HaDorot HaKatzar). According to the Torah, his name was connected to the words spoken by his mother, Leah: "Now my husband will be attached to me (יִלָּוֶה — yilaveh), for I have borne him three sons" (Bereishit 29:34).
In the year 2205 /1555 BCE/, the family moved to Yaakov's homeland, the land of Canaan, and encamped near the city of Shechem (ibid. 31:17-18, 33:18-19). And when, a year and a half later, the ruler of that city abducted Levi's sister Dinah and violated her, the thirteen-year-old Levi, together with his brother Shimon (see), managed through cunning to destroy not only the violator himself but all the men of Shechem (ibid. 34:1-29; Bereishit Rabbah 80:10). And to Yaakov's reproach, "You have brought trouble on me, making me odious to the inhabitants of this land..." — Shimon and Levi answered uncompromisingly: "No one is permitted to treat our sister like a harlot! Let people not gossip about how uncircumcised idolaters defiled the daughter of Yaakov. Let them instead speak of how uncircumcised idolaters were slain over the daughter of Yaakov!" (Bereishit 34:30-31, Targum Yonatan).
In the year 2207 /1553 BCE/, the family settled in Hevron, where Levi first met his righteous grandfather Yitzchak (see) (Bereishit 35:27; Yagel Libeinu). Over the following years, Levi and his brothers studied the foundations of Divine wisdom under the guidance of their father and grandfather (Shemot Rabbah 1:1; Rambam, Avodah Zarah 1:3).
In the year 2213 /1547 BCE/, when Yaakov and his sons once again moved to the vast pastures near Shechem, they had an armed clash with the army of seven Canaanite kings who tried to avenge the deaths of the people of Shechem. In this battle, Levi and his servants managed to destroy the retinue of Eilon, king of the city of Gaash — and Levi himself struck down this king with a shot from a sling (Sefer HaYashar, Vayishlach; Yalkut Shimoni 133; Seder HaDorot).
Soon after these events, Levi married Adina, the eldest daughter of Yovav, grandson of Ever (see). The young couple settled in Hevron, alongside the whole family of Yaakov (Sefer HaYashar, Vayeshev; Seder HaDorot). Their firstborn son was named Gershon; in the year 2215 /1545 BCE/ a second son was born — Kehat, and then another — Merari (Bereishit 46:11; Shemot 6:16; Seder HaDorot).
After the victory over the seven Canaanite kings and the conclusion of a peace treaty with them, Levi and his brothers often drove their flocks to pasture near Shechem (Bereishit 37:13; Sefer HaYashar, Vayishlach). In the year 2216 /1544 BCE/, near Shechem, they held a trial of Yosef (see), accusing him of informing, and Levi, like Shimon, demanded the death penalty for the defendant (Bereishit 37:19-20, Targum Yonatan; Yalkut Shimoni, Vayechi 158). Twenty years later, when Levi and his brothers came to Egypt for grain during the years of famine, Yosef, who had become the ruler of that land, accused them of being Canaanite spies and took Shimon hostage — precisely in order to separate him from Levi, since together these two brothers posed too great a danger to him (Bereishit Rabbah 91:6; Tanchuma, Vayigash 4; Rashi, Bereishit 42:24).
On the way back from Egypt, Levi was the first to notice that the money he had paid the ruler of Egypt for the grain he bought had reappeared in his sack. He cried out to his brothers, "My money has been returned!" — and then they too found a purse of money in each of their sacks, and asked one another in alarm, "What is this that G-d has done to us?!" (Bereishit 42:27-28, Rashi; Sefer HaYashar, Miketz; Yalkut Shimoni, Vayechi 158).
Everything became clear only when, upon the brothers' return to Egypt, the ruler of that land confessed to them: "I am Yosef, your brother..." (Bereishit 45:4).
In the year 2238 /1522 BCE/, Levi, together with his father's entire family, moved to Egypt, to Yosef (Bereishit 46:6; Seder Olam Rabbah 2; Seder HaDorot). On the fifteenth of Nissan, as they crossed the border of Egypt, Levi's second wife, Ota, gave birth to a daughter, Yocheved, who would later become the mother of the greatest of the prophets, Moshe (see), and of the High Priest Aaron (see) (Bamidbar 26:59, Rashi; Targum Yonatan, Bereishit 46:27; Sotah 12a; Bava Batra 120a, Rashi; Ramban, Bereishit 46:15; Seder HaDorot; Otzar Ishei HaTanach, Levi).
In the Egyptian land of Goshen, where Yaakov's family settled, a yeshiva was founded in which the laws of G-d were studied (Tanchuma, Vayigash 11; Bereishit Rabbah 95:3; Rashi, Bereishit 46:28). Yaakov placed Levi, who was distinguished by special holiness, at the head of this yeshiva. Moreover, Yaakov decreed that in future generations as well, it would be specifically the descendants of Levi who would teach the laws of G-d (Rambam, Avodah Zarah 1:3).
In the year 2255 /1505 BCE/, when Yaakov gave his final instructions to his sons before his death, he reproached Levi for the sin of his youth — the massacre of the people of Shechem: "Shimon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their trade. Let my soul not enter their council; let my glory not be joined to their assembly, for in their anger they slew men... I will divide them in Yaakov and scatter them in Israel!" (Bereishit 49:5-7, Onkelos). But then Yaakov blessed Levi together with all his brothers (Bamidbar Rabbah 13:8). Moreover, having stripped his eldest son Reuven (see) of the birthright, Yaakov transferred to Levi the special privileges of the firstborn in serving the Creator: his descendants were to become kohanim and Levites, serving in the Temple (Bereishit Rabbah 98:4).
And when the sons and grandsons of Yaakov carried the coffin with his body to the land of Canaan, in accordance with their father's final wish, Levi was exempted from bearing the load — for in the future his descendants were to carry the Ark of the Covenant and serve in the holy Temple, and he was not to receive ritual impurity from a dead body (Bereishit 50:8; Bamidbar Rabbah 2:8; Sefer HaYashar, Vayechi). And after Yaakov's body was buried in the family tomb, the Cave of Machpelah, on the fifteenth of Tishrei in the year 2256, the brothers returned once again to Egypt (Bereishit 50:13-14; Seder HaDorot).
Beginning in the year 2317 /1443 BCE/, after the death of the eldest of the brothers, Reuven, Levi became the elder and head of the entire family of Yaakov (Bamidbar Rabbah 13:8).
Levi ben Yaakov died in Egypt in the year 2331 /1429 BCE/ at the age of 137 — the last of the brothers to pass away (Shemot 6:16; Seder Olam Rabbah 3; Sefer HaYashar, Shemot; Seder HaDorot).
In the Midrash, Levi is called one of the greatest tzadikim of humanity: after the Shechinah had withdrawn from the earth to the seventh level of the Heavens because of the sins of the first twenty generations, our forefather Avraham (see) managed to "bring it down" from the seventh level to the sixth, our forefather Yitzchak — to the fifth, our forefather Yaakov — to the fourth, and Levi — to the third. Subsequently, in the merit of his son Kehat, the Shechinah descended to the second level of the Heavens; in the merit of his grandson Amram (see) — to the first; and in the merit of his great-grandson Moshe (see), the Shechinah once again found a resting place in the lower world (Bereishit Rabbah 19:7; Bamidbar Rabbah 13:2).
After Levi's death, the gradual enslavement of the Children of Israel began (Shemot 1:6-11; Sefer HaYashar, Shemot; Seder HaDorot). However, the descendants of Levi were not enslaved (Tanchuma, Va'era 6; Shemot Rabbah 5:16) — they did not engage in any trade at all, devoting all their strength entirely to the study of G-d's laws. The Levites established a whole series of yeshivot in Egypt, in which they studied the tradition received through the chain of generations from Adam and our forefather Avraham (Chizkuni, Shemot 5:4).
And when most of the Children of Israel, under the influence of exhausting slave labor, declined morally, stopped observing the laws of the forefathers and performing circumcision, and then, striving to resemble the Egyptians in every way, inclined toward idolatry, only three tribes did not serve idols — the descendants of Reuven, Shimon, and Levi (Bamidbar Rabbah 13:8). And only the tribe of Levi fully preserved a righteous way of life and continued to selflessly observe the teaching of the forefathers (Tanchuma, Beha'alotcha 8; Bamidbar Rabbah 15:12; Rambam, Avodah Zarah 3:1).
The Children of Israel went out of Egyptian slavery led by direct descendants of Levi — Moshe and Aaron (they were Levi's grandsons through their mother, and great-grandsons through their father) (Shemot 2:1-2, 6:20; Divrei HaYamim 1, 5:27-29; Sotah 12a). And when the Children of Israel made the Golden Calf at Mount Sinai, not a single Levite bowed to it. By order of Moshe, the Levites put to death all who had committed this sin (Shemot 32:26-28; Yoma 66b; Tanchuma, Beha'alotcha 8; Bamidbar Rabbah 15:12).
And since the descendants of Levi had proven their faithfulness to the Creator, they were chosen to serve in the Tent of Meeting when it was erected: Aaron and his sons, who became kohanim, performed the sacrifices and incense offerings, while the rest of Levi's descendants guarded the Tent and carried its parts during the journeys through the wilderness (Bamidbar 1:50-51, 3:1-12).
In the census taken in the wilderness, the Levites were not included in the general count (Bamidbar 1:47-48), but were counted separately: "every male from one month old and upward" (ibid. 3:15); there were twenty-two thousand of them — their number did not even reach half that of the smallest of the other tribes (ibid. 3:39, Ramban).
The camp of the Levites was situated directly around the Tent of Meeting — in the midst of the other tribes (Bamidbar 1:53; 3:21-38). The banner of the tribe of Levi consisted of three stripes — white, black, and red — and depicted upon it were the Urim and Tummim, which were placed inside the Choshen Mishpat, the High Priest's breastplate of judgment (Bamidbar Rabbah 2:7).
In the year before entering the Land of Israel, the tribe of Levi numbered twenty-three thousand males from one month old and upward (Bamidbar 26:62). The descendants of Levi did not receive a special portion of land (ibid. 18:23-24; Yehoshua 13:14); they settled among the other tribes, in forty-eight cities allotted to them for dwelling (Bamidbar 35:1-8; Yehoshua 21:20-40) — thus fulfilling the dying prediction of our forefather Yaakov: "I will scatter them in Israel" (Ramban, Bereishit 49:5-7).
And when the Children of Israel conquered the Holy Land, the coffin with Levi's body, brought from Egypt, was buried in the city of Megada, located in the territory of the tribe of Shimon — many Levites settled in this city (Sefer HaYashar, Yehoshua; Seder HaDorot).
The descendants of Levi — the kohanim and the Levites — served in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (Divrei HaYamim 1, 9:1-33). At the same time, there were especially many Torah sages among them (Devarim 17:9, 33:10; Nechemiah 8:7-9; Divrei HaYamim 2, 19:8; Yoma 26a). For their labor, the descendants of Levi received from the Children of Israel special contributions established by the Torah (Bamidbar 18:8-28; Devarim 14:28-29, 26:12).
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Grave: Yaakov Avinu