Parashat Bemidbar, Numbers 1:1-4:20

What's in a number?

Bills, bills, bills! Ever try to sort out a problem with a bill? You call an automated system, and the first thing they do is have you punch in your account number. Some of them identify you by your phone number, or your postal code. Then they ask for your account number again. Let's not forget the password, which often must be alphanumeric, with the odd symbol tossed in for good measure. If you're lucky, you will eventually speak to a living, breathing human, who will ask you once again for your account number! Even when dealing face to face with an individual who asks for identification, they will often write down your driver's license number. Gone are the days when A good name is better than fine oil. (Ecclesiastes 7:1) Nowadays, it’s your number that’s important, whether it’s your ID, credit rating, or a desirable postal or zip code.

Thus it is somewhat disconcerting to open up the fourth book of the Torah, Bemidbar (in the wilderness), and find out that it begins with the counting of people, clans and tribes. No wonder it is called Numbers in English! Think back to the book of Shemot, Exodus. That book began with the names of the people who went down to Egypt; here we have the number of people in the wilderness.

This is not the first time that God counts the people of Israel. We were counted after the incident of the Golden Calf. God also counted us when we were instructed to make a tabernacle so that God would dwell in our midst.

So what’s the difference between being called and being counted, between a name and a number? It is the difference between the personal and the impersonal, between the infinite and the finite.

There was until quite recently an ambivalence toward counting people and toward knowing their ages. For there was a feeling that knowing someone’s “number” was equivalent to knowing that person’s essence, and such knowledge was ultimately a divine prerogative (e.g., knowing when “someone’s number was up”). However important a census might be, it had to have divine sanction; and if it did not—as in David’s time—the consequences could be catastrophic (II Sam. 24). Latter-day reflections of this ambivalence have been the hesitation of Jews to keep an exact record of their own years, and the habit of counting people in one’s presence by saying, “Not one, not two, not three. . .“—as if to tell God that they were not really presuming on divine privileges.

The Torah: A Modern Commentary, revised edition, W. Gunther Plaut, ed., p. 914

In Bemidbar, as elsewhere in the Torah, it is God who commands that the census be taken. It is done for a Divine purpose. Rashi comments on this census taking, pointing out that God has taken count before. He sees this as a sign of God’s love; God counts that which is dear to the Divine. This is similar to a collector opening a box and lovingly looking at the treasured possessions within. It is a reminder that each one of us is treasured by God. Recall that we are still counting the Omer. As was previously mentioned, counting is also a measure of enthusiasm, and a reaffirmation of our devotion to God.

But somewhere between Shemot and Bemidbar the focus shifts from names to numbers. We went down to Egypt as individuals, but we were redeemed as a group that had bonded through a series of shared experiences. We think of names as providing us with an identity. This is true on a personal level; in a communal setting, a number can represent a common bond or shared experience. A few examples:

· the Group of Seven (Influential Canadian landscape artists from the 1920's.)

· the Mercury Seven (The first seven individuals chosen as astronauts by NASA to fly in the Mercury program.)

· the Chicago Seven (Seven individuals charged with conspiracy at the 1968 Democratic convention.)

· the Gang of Four (A group of leaders in China arrested after the death of Mao and held responsible for failings of the Cultural Revolution. The group included Mao's widow Jiang Qing. Not to be confused with the band of the same name.)

· the Jackson Five (Rock and roll hall-of-famers, this Motown band introduced 11-year-old Michael as the lead singer.)

· the Three Stooges (A vaudeville team specializing in slapstick humour; they made a successful transition to the screen, producing many short films. For true aficionados no one could replace Curly, nyuk, nyuk.)

To paraphrase Shakespeare, what's in a number?

In our contemporary society, we advocate for the individual, sometimes at the expense of the community. Every decade, the government sends people out to take down details of individual lives. These details are tiles in the mosaic that forms a picture of our nation. The census in Bemidbar is also an illustration of a community at a point in time. It serves to remind us that we are part of a group that shares a transformative experience.

How odd! Being identified by an account number lessens my humanity; being counted in a census reaffirms it. Moreover, being counted in a community strengthens my commitment and sense of responsibility to that community. I say this as a woman who has experienced being both included and excluded from a minyan. You relate in a different way to a community that includes you. Inclusion brings with it a desire to contribute to the group. You can see a visible transformation on the face of a Bar or Bat-Mitzvah the first time he or she is asked to be part of a minyan. Indeed, the individual is most important in a community. Bemidbar's message for all of us is: count me in.

Shabbat shalom,
MS

Parashat Emor, Leviticus 21:1-24:23

This Parasha has been generously sponsored by Jeanette Grosman. In memory of her dear friend, Lieba Lesk, 2 Iyar.

In our counting the Omer, God is counting on us.

Few things are as delightful as being present when a young child accomplishes a new task or makes a discovery. I treasure the memories of each of my children managing that first bike ride on his own. Light and darkness were never the same after my then four-month-old son discovered his shadow and tried to catch it. There is something magical about a toddler making the connection between an abstract concept and a concrete item –such as numbers. It is pure pleasure to find out a youngster's age by the number of fingers they proudly hold up.

This intangible pleasure of connecting the concrete and abstract may lie behind the popularity of Count Von Count, the vampirish character on Sesame Street who will count anything and everything. The technical term for his obsession is Arithmomania. The Count has been entertaining and educating youngsters for thirty-six years; that's double Chai in Jewish terms, but who's counting? (Chai, the two-lettered Hebrew word for life has a numerical value of 18.)

It's too bad the Count isn't Jewish. This week's portion, Emor, would have been perfect for his Bar-Mitzvah. He might have started his Dvar Torah (exposition on the weekly torah portion) by telling us that this week's portion is brought to you by the number seven. The twenty-third chapter of Leviticus is all about the calendar. It teaches that the seventh day, Shabbat is important: On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. (Leviticus 23:3) The seventh month (Tishrei) contains important holidays: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts. …Mark, the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you: you shall practice self-denial… On the fifteenth day of this seventh month there shall be the Feast of Booths to the Lord, [to last] seven days. (Leviticus 23:23, 27, 34) The pilgrimage festivals of Sukkot and Pesach each lasts seven days. The connection between the third pilgrimage festival, Shavuot, and Pesach is also dealt with in multiples of seven: And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering — the day after the sabbath — you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week — fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the Lord. (Leviticus 23:15-16)

Counting the days from Pesach to Shavuot is called sefirat ha’omer, the counting of the Omer, the Omer being a measure of grain brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. (For Sesame Street fans who prefer letters to numbers, this week's parasha is brought to you by the letters e, m, o, and r – which in English spell both Emor and Omer.) The period of sefirat ha’omer is the time between the barley harvest in early spring and the wheat harvest in late spring. It consists of seven weeks of seven days. I am sure the Count would love to count the days, if not each grain in the harvest offering; however, someone else got there first, and today it is possible to "Count the Omer with Homer" i.e. Homer Simpson!

Though we are currently in that period of time between Pesach and Shavuot, our concern is no longer with the harvests of ancient times. In keeping with rabbinic interpretation, sefirat ha’omer is the preparatory period to receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai on Shavuot. It is a measure of the spiritual distance we have traveled from Egyptian servitude to freely entering God's covenant.

The period that connects the two levels of freedom, Sefirat Haomer (counting of the Omer), began with the cutting of the first sheaf of barley that ripened. Barley is animal fodder. An animal is a being whose consciousness consists of the immediate situation. Having no vision of what is beyond the self is the least Jewish of attitudes. As we count the days representing the duration of the barley harvest, we rise toward the start of what was the wheat harvest. Wheat is human food, a symbol of hokhmah, intelligence (based on the rabbis' dictum that a child does not utter its first word until it has tasted bread).
… The message is that without Torah, which gives us the insights to recognize what we want, and the moral standards and social ethics to guide us to accomplish it, we are like animals who respond to instinct. Raw barley needs to give way to the refined wheat, the grain to meal and bread. Raw natural intelligence needs to be refined to become the wisdom through which potential can be reached.

Lesli Koppelman Ross, Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holiday Handbook, p. 125

Counting is also a measure of enthusiasm. (Count Von Count being a wonderful role model for this!) Children count the days until their birthday. Students count the days until summer vacation. We count the days until the visit from a favorite relative. Counting requires our attention. We take note of something and are fully engaged in it; we take account and are accountable. For Maimonides, the eagerness is as crucial as the actual counting:

Just as one who awaits a most intimate friend on a certain day counts in ardent expectation the days and even the hours until his coming, so we count the days from the anniversary of our departure from Egypt until the Festival of the Giving of the Torah. For the latter was the aim and object of the Exodus from Egypt.

In counting the Omer we spiritually reaffirm our devotion to God, Torah and fulfilling the Divine will. You could say that in our counting the Omer, God is counting on us. Each day of sefirat ha’omer is an opportunity to strengthen that spiritual bond. The tradition of studying Pirke Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) reinforces this desire. So too does the Kabbalistic (mystical) approach of using every day to focus on a particular combination of God's emanations. (Each emanation is called a sefirah in Hebrew; the same word also means "counting".) Whatever approach one brings to this task, the desire is best expressed in – of all things – Sonnets from the Portuguese:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach…

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Shabbat shalom,
MS