Parshat Bamidbar - The Kli Yakar

כָּל פְּקוּדֵי הַלְוִיִּם אֲשֶׁר פָּקַד משֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן עַל פִּי יְהוָֹה לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם כָּל זָכָר מִבֶּן חֹדֶשׁ וָמַעְלָה שְׁנַיִם וְעֶשְׂרִים אָלֶף 

The sum of the male Levites according to their families, from the age of one month and upward, counted by Moses and Aaron according to the word of the Lord, was twenty-two thousand. (3:39)

When Paroh decreed that all Jewish baby boys be thrown into the Nile, Amram divorced his wife, Yocheved, so they could no longer bear children and would not be faced with this heart-breaking decree.
 
The rest of the nation followed suit and also divorced their wives.

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Yet Amram and Yocheved's daughter, Miriam, approached her father with a plea to reunite with her mother because while the Egyptian decree affected all male children, the decision not to have children at all affected both male and female children.
Conceding to his daughter's wisdom, Amram rejoined his wife, with the rest of the nation following suit.
 
Interestingly, the Kli Yakar maintains that the marital separation occurred only within Shevet Levi (Amram and Yocheved's tribe) and not throughout the entire nation.
He presents two reasons why this must be so.
Regarding the first reason, he starts off by asking a rhetorical question about the Jewish people of that time: 

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How could they stand to be without a woman for such a long time?

Yet his wonderment at being without a woman for so long is not for the reason you might think.

He goes on to explain:

....because "In the merit of righteous women were our fathers redeemed."
And it summarizes there [Sotah 11b] all the favors they did for their husbands when they [the husbands] were immersed in grueling toil.

In case you are wondering (as I did) what those favors were, here they are:

• These dedicated wives drew water and fish from the river,
• heated up the water and cooked the fish,
• took all this to their depleted husbands in the field.

At that point in the field, these dedicated wives did the following:

• washed and anointed their husbands (I imagine this means that they applied ointment to chaffed skin and wounds, but I don't know for sure),
• fed them,
• gave them to drink,
• and were intimate with them.

 
The Kli Yakar concludes:

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From this, we see that they [the men] could not have managed without the women.

He goes on to describe the well-known tradition that explains how Shevet Levi was not enslaved. And therefore, they were not emotionally and physically depleted.

And so, they could manage to be without their wife's support.
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When Bigger is Not Better
The second reason why the Kli Yakar assumes the marital separation took place only within Shevet Levi is due to Shevet Levi's smaller population as compared to the other Tribes. And he attributes this population difference to their long-term abstinence.
 
Finally, the Kli Yakar notes this is yet another instance in which Hashem "chooses the lesser," a running theme throughout Tanach in which Hashem chooses the youngest sibling, the least prestigious person, the smallest mountain, etc., to be His agent. Shevet Levi was at most half the size of the other Tribes, yet Hashem took the Kohanic line (Aharon HaKohen) and the greatest navi and leader (Moshe Rabbeinu) from that Tribe.
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The Jewish Superstars 

שְׂאוּ אֶת רֹאשׁ כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם בְּמִסְפַּר שֵׁמוֹת כָּל זָכָר לְגֻלְגְּלֹתָם

Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by families following their fathers' houses; a head count of every male according to the number of their names. (1:2)

Many times throughout the Torah, the Jew people are likened to the Sun and the stars.

Here, the Kli Yakar reassures us of our great importance to Hashem and the great care with which He attends to us.

Even a fallen Jew is worth an entire world, while those who teach righteousness apparently produce a brilliant and eternal light:

Every man of Yisrael is Personally Supervised and even just one Jew is considered as an entire nation, as it says: "....and a multitude of them will fall" (Shemot 19:21).

And even if one shall fall, he resembles "a multitude." Therefore, Hashem gave them a number, just like he did for the stars, as it says of them:
"He brings forth their legions by number; He calls to each of them by their name" (Yeshayahu 40:26). 
It mentions here "the number of their names" to teach that "those who teach righteousness to the multitudes will be like stars forever and ever" (Daniel 12:3) because each one warrants Personal Supervision [hashgacha pratit].

The Kli Yakar latches on to this theme of heavenly luminaries quite a lot.

Just as two examples:

• In Parshat Vayetzeh, he compares the darker and lighter times of the Jewish people to the Sun's changing light in different seasons.
• And in Parshat Chayei Sara, he states that righteous women are as vital to the world's existence as the rotation of the Sun.

This is the power your soul has when you really allow it to shine.

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Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz (1550-1619) lived in Bohemia (which is today Poland and Czechoslovakia). He served as rabbi and dayan and wrote several books, the most well-known being his commentary on the Chumash known as the Kli Yakar.
This is my translation and any errors are also mine. 
The Hebrew and English verses were taken from this wonderful site:
The Complete Tanach at Chabad.org