This is the service of the families of the clan of Gershon, to serve and to carry.
Numbers 4:24
G-d instructed Moses to count the clan of Kehat first because they carried the Ark of the Covenant, which housed the Torah, the means through which we bind our mind to G-d.1 He then said to “take a census of the clan of Gershon, too.” The fact that the clan of Gershon’s tally is secondary to that of the clan of Kehat indicates that the mind is the primary means by which we ascend to higher levels of Divine consciousness.
But once our mind is elevated, our whole life can be elevated together with it, so once the clan of Kehat is “lifted up,” we can
raise the clan of Gershon, too. In fact, the Torah’s power to raise us higher than the material world is manifest most fully when it elevates our mundane, daily lives.
— Daily Wisdom 3