Benjamin – Ninth Tribe / Kislev - Ninth Month
We are now the month of November and this is the beginning of the Hebrew month of Kislev. On the Festival calendar count, this is month number nine**. A simple check of Numbers chapter 2 gives us the camping order of the Israelites while they traveled in the wilderness. The ninth tribe to be listed in camping order is the tribe of Benjamin (verse 22). Benjamin completes the tribes listed for the camping order of the west side of the tabernacle… camping alongside Ephraim and Manasseh. Thus the Joseph grouping is complete.
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Benjamin’s mother was Rachel. We all know the story of Jacob bringing all of his family back to The Land after spending 20 years serving Laban and his family. Rachel is pregnant with her second child as they make their return. Not long after crossing the Jordan, Rachel delivers her second child, a boy. She is in distress and about to die, thus naming her son, Ben-oni, which means ‘son of my sorrow/pain’. Yet, Jacob steps in and changes his name to Benjamin, ‘son of my right hand”. These events give Benjamin three very powerful distinctions from all his other brothers. He is the only son born in The Land, he is the only son to receive two names and he is the only son who is named by his father, Jacob.
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Now, let’s look at another aspect of Benjamin that is not as readily known, but will help us further understand the attributes of this particular tribe and how they relate to this month of Kislev. At the end of the 40 years of trekking in the wilderness when the tribes are assigned their allotments of land in The Land, there is a unique combination of tribes that surround Jerusalem where the Temple is located. The tribes involved in this unique combination are Judah, Levi and Benjamin. Judah is the tribe assigned land to the south of Jerusalem and west of the Dead Sea, while Benjamin is assigned land adjacent to Judah’s northern border. The boundary between these two tribes runs through Jerusalem. Thus Benjamin and Judah share the area of the Temple Mount. Levi, not having any land assigned is part of the combination because of their service within the Temple.
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So, why are these three tribes assigned to this special part of The Land, upon which YHVH has placed His name? And how does this help in understanding the significance of Benjamin to this ninth month of Kislev?
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Part of the answer comes from the blessing which Jacob gave to Benjamin in Genesis 49:27. To Benjamin, he says “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he devours the prey, and in the evening he divides the spoil.” What is Jacob meaning with this declaration towards the son he named ‘the son of my right hand’?
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The key is found is the words ‘morning’ and ‘evening’. Where else have we heard of these words used together? It’s within the Temple service of the evening and the morning lamb’s upon the altar. The altar is like a ravenous wolf, consuming in the morning and dividing the sacrifice in the evening. So we have this connection of Benjamin to the Temple.
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Another part of the answer involves something that Judah did as a selfless act that showed great love for his father Jacob. Judah came to the rescue of Benjamin, when the youth was about to be “arrested” by the second most powerful man in Egypt for “stealing” his petal cup. Judah didn’t know that this powerful man in Egypt was his brother Joseph, who was testing his brothers to find out if they had matured after all these years. Judah proved that he did. Judah and Benjamin became established in this big brother protecting his little brother relationship – for the sake of the love of their father Jacob.
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Levi’s portion of the answer comes from the character of Levi himself. Levi was a zealous man, who displayed this zealousness with selfless devotion in unusual ways. When his sister Dinah was raped in Shechem, he (and Simeon) killed the people of Shechem to protect her honour and dignity. When the children of Israel worshipped the golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai, it was the Levites who refrained from participating (Exodus 32:26). They stood fast with selfless devotion to the declaration made earlier to obey the words of the commandments.
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These three tribes expressed the virtue that is known as Mesirus nefesh or selfless devotion to the point of being willing to die to sanctify HaShem’s Name.
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In Benjamin’s case… the level of selfless devotion is understood in the two aspects that made him different from all his brothers. As mentioned earlier, he was the only one born in The Land. A certain sense of sanctity comes from this. He was also the only son named by his father Jacob.
These two aspects distinguish Benjamin from his brothers. Benjamin probably understood this distinction of his life and walked in a virtuous manner (behaviour showing high moral standards). We can extrapolate something of this in the story of Joseph being sold to Egypt. Benjamin was the only brother not there. Most of us assume that he might have been too young to be out in the field tending sheep (which may be true), yet we have the example of David as the youngest son of Jesse tending the sheep. Whatever the case may be, there is another theory to consider.
What if he was potentially so confident in his selfless devotion (because he understood his destiny) that he would have stood up to the other brothers and blocked the sale of Joseph into Egypt? If this had happened, Joseph would not have been in the position to save the whole family during the great famine that came years later (Genesis 45:5). To this end, Benjamin’s selfless devotion was very powerful and thus he was blessed with the virtues of a ravenous wolf given by his father as a reference to the altar of the LORD. And when Moses declared his blessing on Benjamin in Deuteronomy 33:12, he states “Of Benjamin he said, “May the beloved of the LORD dwell in security by Him, Who shields him all the day, And he dwells between His shoulders.” Here Moses blesses Benjamin with the location of where the ravenous wolf (altar) will be located.
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Thus we can see how many ways Benjamin is tied to Temple. Hanukkah, which takes place in this month of Kislev is tied to the Temple, with the inspired story of the miraculous lighting of the Temple menorah for eight days. Okay, we can see that Hanukkah is tied to the Temple and so is Benjamin, but how is Hanukkah tied in to the selfless devotion that Benjamin lived? It is the example of Judah Maccabee*** and his followers who overthrew the Syrian/Roman army and retook Jerusalem. This was a similar act of selfless devotion along the same lines as Benjamin.
Thus we now know that Benjamin is the tribe that displays the attributes highlighted in the month of Kislev.
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Chag Urim Sameach!
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**Did you know that the number nine (since this is the ninth month) represents fruitfulness and giving?
***Did you know that the name Maccabee is a composition of the initial letters of the four Hebrew words Mi Kamocha Ba’eilim Hashem, "Who is like You, O G‑d." These are the first words of the song our ancestors sang when they safely crossed the Red Sea and which we sing today as part of Kiddush.
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Next: Dan - Tenth Tribe / Tevet - Tenth Month
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