Dan is the first son of Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant. Rachel says: "G-d has judged me, and He has also heard my voice, and He has given me a son" (Genesis 30:6). The name comes from din, judgment.
Jacob takes up the word: "Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel." Then comes a harsher image: "Dan shall be a serpent on the road, a viper on the path, that bites the horse's heels so that its rider falls backward." And Jacob breaks off: "I hope for Your salvation, O G-d" (Genesis 49:16 to 18). The maidservant's son shall judge "as one of the tribes," on an equal footing.
Moses gives him the image Jacob had given Judah: "Dan is a lion cub, leaping forth from Bashan" (Deuteronomy 33:22). The same word, gur aryeh, links the first and the last camp.
On the breastplate, according to the Targum attributed to Jonathan, his stone is the second of the second row, the sapir (Exodus 28:18). It is translated as sapphire, but nothing guarantees that the biblical stone is the one called by that name today. In the desert Dan leads the northern camp, with Asher and Naphtali (Numbers 2:25 to 31), and this camp sets out "last." Ibn Ezra reports that his banner bore an eagle; with Judah's lion, Reuben's man and Ephraim's ox, the four banners resembled the cherubim seen by the prophet Ezekiel.
According to the order of the banners, Dan receives Tevet, the month of the letter Ayin (Sefer Yetzirah 5:2); in the Vilna Gaon's version, Ayin rules over anger. The Bnei Yissaschar writes it: "Kislev for Benjamin and Tevet for Dan." Be careful: anger is a faculty that Sefer Yetzirah attaches to a letter, not a trait of the tribe; none of the texts read here makes Dan an angry man. The attribution of months also varies with the order followed, as the introductory entry recalls.
Keep this: the son of a maidservant becomes judge of his people, and his blessing stops on a prayer, "I hope for Your salvation." The one who closes the march bears the same name of lion cub as the one who opens it.
