Aaron אהרן הכהן

Aharon was born in 2365, three years before Moshe. When Moshe refuses the mission, pleading a heavy tongue, God answers: "There is Aharon your brother… and when he sees you he will rejoice in his heart." The sages note that the elder brother whose primacy is taken rejoices—and for that wears the breastplate with the tribes' names over his heart.

He speaks to Pharaoh, raises the staff over Egypt's waters, and with Chur holds up Moshe's hands against Amalek. In the affair of the golden calf he plays a passive part, trying to gain time; the Torah does not hide it, nor does it strip him of his office.

With the Mishkan he becomes High Priest. On the very first day of service his sons Nadav and Avihu die, and of him the Torah says only: "And Aharon was silent."

Hillel formulates his image in Avot: "Be of the disciples of Aharon—loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and drawing them near to Torah." He died on 1 Av 2487 on Mount Hor.

The year of his birth is nowhere transmitted, and his age will not come out even—better to say so than to smooth it over. The usual "2365" is a plain subtraction: Exodus 7:7 says that when they spoke to Pharaoh Moses was eighty and Aaron eighty-three, so the elder by three years. But Numbers 33:39 says he died aged 123, and 2365 to 2487 gives 122 years. The two verses agree in completed years only if he was born in 2364 and between Iyar and Av—but that month is named nowhere, Seder Olam gives no birth year for Aaron at all, and Rashi, Ramban and Ibn Ezra pass over the reckoning on Exodus 7:7 in silence. We keep the received 2365 and state the gap: on the timeline Aaron's age comes out one year short of the one the Torah gives at his death.