To Be Counted Is To Count

On Friday night, the holy Baal Shem Tov would spend hours devoted to the evening prayers. His followers would finish praying in the usual manner and wait around for their Rebbe to finish.

It happened that one of the participants felt hungry. It would still be several hours before the Baal Shem Tov finished his prayers. No one would miss him if he went home, ate and came back before the Rebbe finished. Someone noticed the man sneaking out and decided to do the same. Soon, the Baal Shem Tov was left alone to his prayers.

When the group returned, with what they believed to be plenty of time left, they found, to their chagrin, the Baal Shem Tov sitting and waiting for them. He explained to them that a person’s head is only as high as the rest of his body. He, the Baal Shem Tov was like a head to the community. He could only stay “up there” if he had the support of the rest of the community.

This week we begin the fourth of the five books that constitute the Pentateuch – Bamidbar – also known as the Book of Numbers. Though the Hebrew word Bamidbar means in the desert, the name Numbers appears to have derived from the fact that the first Parsha (also called Bamidbar) begins with a count.

Moshe is told to count the entire populace, from twenty and up: “Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel according to their families, according to their fathers’ household, by number of the names, every male according to their head count. From twenty years of age and up – everyone who goes out to the legion in Israel – you shall count them according to their legions, you and Aaron.” (Numbers 1:2-3).

The book of Bamidbar is in fact replete with names of leaders of the tribes of Israel and the count of people in the camp. The commentators are rather perplexed by the great detail and tedious statistics recorded in this volume. Of what value is it to know the names of the leaders of the tribes of Israel? And what do the numbers of the count of the individual tribes and families of the Jewish people teach us?

After all, there was no road infrastructure that had to be built, they were in a desert. There was no housing development plan that had to be assessed, they lived in Sukkos. And there was no need to calculate agricultural concerns, food was sent from Heaven.

In a Torah where every word and nuance is calculated and measured, there seems to be no apparent reason for all the seemingly insignificant names and numbers.

What possible bearing could the recorded numbers have on any moral issue that is relevant to us as Twentieth Century Jews? Does it truly matter that the tribe of Gad had 45,650 males over twenty or that the tribe of Menashe had 32,200?

At least if the numbers were astounding, it might be interpreted as a matter of national pride. But the numbers themselves are hardly impressive. The Jewish nation has never been legendary for its exceptional numbers. This point is underscored rather succinctly by G-d Himself: “I have not chosen you because of your great numbers; rather, you are to be the smallest of all nations.”

The count was obviously not intended to impress anyone with our monolithic numbers, nor was it for socio-economic reasons. The Torah is rather determined to emphasize the importance and inherent value of each and every soul – to teach that each soul can alter the course of our history.

Simply stating that there were approximately six hundred thousand male Jews from the ages of twenty to sixty is a mere statistic. Most statistics are faceless, impersonal and sometimes even meaningless. They never carry a moral or even educational lesson to the reader.

A significant part of our Parsha, indeed, of the book of Bamidbar, is hence dedicated to the details of these censes. With this the Torah emphasizes the importance of each individual in the eyes of G-d. Every individual is important, there are no communal estimates.

In fact, the counting actually uplifted them. Moshe was commanded to conduct a census so as to elevate the Jews to a higher Divine awareness. Hence the term: “S’u es rosh bnai Yisroel – count (literally lift up the heads of) the Children of Israel.

The very act of being counted assigned each Jew importance and a role to play. It was not merely a matter of numbers – a means of enumerating them – but also a means of appointing a special dignity and significance to each and every one who was counted.

Our sages teach that the letters of our national moniker are an acronym for a fundamental lesson in national identity. The five Hebrew letters that spell “Yisrael” represent “Yesh Shishim Ribu Osiyos Latorah” – there are six hundred thousand letters in the Torah. There is another important “600,000” in Judaism: the census of Jews who accepted the Torah at Sinai, who are, in fact, the original Klal Yisrael.
What is the correlation between the Jewish population and the letters of the Torah? The answer is that just as a Torah scroll is rendered invalid if even a single letter is missing or incomplete, so too is every Jew vital to the wholeness and validity of the Jewish nation.

The Torah’s emphasis on the importance of counting each and every member of our nation remains with us to this very day: Each person counts! He or she is unique; different from every other, with a unique function and unique contribution to make.

The census indicated how each individual was part of a family unit, part of a larger tribe, and a crucial building block in the larger whole. It sends a message for all generations: We each have something to contribute, and the entire Nation needs us!

The fact that there are so few Jews in the world places a greater responsibility on the Jews that exist. The world is preserved by the few, the righteous, the moral and the kind. Our father, Avraham, and our mother, Sarah, built the civilized world by education and example, even though they were a lonely couple in their world. The few are the ones that lead and guide the many, for good or for better.

The realization of the importance of the individual is one of the cardinal principles of Jewish belief and behavior. In fact, the source of much of Jewish self-pride and positive stubbornness over the ages was the realization that “I belong to the few and therefore my responsibility is vast.”

So, the numbers of Bamidbar teach us an ancillary lesson, which is as important as the direct count and numbers of Israel itself.

In conclusion I share the heartworming words of the Medrash Rabbah – Bamidbar 2:19: ”Come and see how precious is Israel before the Holy One, for behold, the Holy One, Blessed be He, wrote an account of Israel four times according to their encampments, twice individually and twice in summation, and further he counted each encampment (or flag) in summation and individually, in order to demonstrate how precious they are before Him. For they were His armies and He wanted to count them continuously, like a person who has a fortune which is very precious to him, who counts it and goes back and counts it again many times, in order to know its account, and who rejoices in it with every single accounting. Just the same, the Holy One, Blessed be He, rejoiced to remember the account of Israel…”

Gut Shabbos