By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.
SAN DIEGO — This week’s parasha is read on the Shabbat before the celebration of Shavuot (this year beginning on Saturday evening, June 4, and concluding on Monday evening June 6). Both the parasha and the holiday involve counting. In the parasha, we learn of the importance of counting each person, and on Shavuot, we complete the counting of the 49 days of the Omer, a time during which we’ve prepared to receive the Torah on Mount Sinai, “as one man, with one heart.” Each day in our lives brings with it a matchless chance to increase our commitment to Hashem, the Torah, and His mitzvot.
We begin this Torah reading with Hashem instructing Moshe to take a census of the Jewish People: “Se’u es rosh kol adas Bnei Yisrael (take a census [lit. raise every head of] the assembly of the Children of Israel) lemishpechosam leveis avosam (according to their families, according to their father’s household) bemispar sheimos (by the number of the names).”
Another observation in this parashah is the degalim (banners/ flags) described in the second chapter. Each three-tribe grouping carried its own unique banner. The Midrash describes that twenty- two thousand chariots of angels bearing degalim attended the revelation at Mount Sinai.
In Bamidbar, the tribes camped in the wilderness, “each man by his division with the flag of their fathers’ house.” Rashi explains on this point, “Every division shall have its own flag staff with a colored flag hanging on it, the color of one being different from the color of any other.”
We all need to feel a sense of belonging to a larger good. Each tribe had its own leader, its own place to camp, its own color and flag, and its own representative stone on the breastplate worn by the High Priest. With this strong sense of belonging to something, they were able to discover who they truly were, their purpose and focus on their contribution. How important today is it to belong to a welcoming, warm and open kehilla that celebrates each individual, donors, daveners, doers and those who sit in the back row still deciding? “One heart” does not necessarily mean being the same as others, as much as it means being strong enough and supported enough to be a part of things with one’s own uniqueness.
In a sense, we are all living in the danger of the wilderness, in a desert filled with obstacles, achievements and failures. We are surrounded with our bitachon in Hashem, and by our loving family, friends, fellow congregants, esteemed teachers. And yet, we do our “hishtadlus,” our own self-help, whether it be for parnassa, shidduchim, health and sustenance. After all, it is in the wilderness where our ancestors encountered Hashem and where our Torah is revealed. And we can do the same.
Perhaps we all need the uncertainty and adventure of a wilderness from time to time to create a strengthened appreciation for life, and to recognize the opportunities we have in tough times to learn, mature, grow spiritually and develop our inner strength and self-reliance – necessary for our survival, anchored in mutual dependence and respectful relationships, one to another. Medical science tells us how important it is to spend time in nature. The wilderness, nature, brings with it the opportunity to see, learn, try new things, write new stories, and strengthen our link to the awe we see in the handiwork of Hashem.
But we do not walk alone in this life.
The wilderness. The midbar, a place of uncertainty, fear, and danger. Daled-bais-reish lies at the root of the word. These letters also are found in the root of davar, word, to speak words that lead to spiritual healing.
This wasn’t just any midbar, nor was it just any davar we heard. No, we received Hashem’s davar, His Torah, in the vast wilderness, through which we embarked on a forty-year passage with a very specific goal, the Promised Land. We did not go directly to the Promised Land. No, we used the opportunity of the midbar to help us express our identity. We needed a site free of distraction, from which we could learn that even in a vast expanse of open land, a spiritual wilderness, a location in which we could be filled with hopelessness and anguish, God is with us, his davar can always be heard.
To help organize and provide focus to our people in the midst of the midbar, the parasha tells us of Hashem’s command to Moshe to take a census, not just to count the people, but perhaps more importantly to help assure us that we count, we matter, and for us to remember that every human being has an important contribution to make. When we place Hashem in the center of our lives, we count. Rashi tells us that His counting of us is an indication of His love for us. We weren’t just counted though. The Sfas Emes teaches that the root of the word, pekudim, the census numbers, also means assignments. We were given our sense of value, the role we were to play, and told of our place in this world, giving us a sense of order.
Our guidebook, our Torah, is our “GPS” system (“Gratitude, Positivity and Sensitivity”) to help us through the challenges of life — from pandemics, politics, and relationships, to finances, and health. We learn the value of faith, daring, modesty, appreciation, and not taking anything, especially our health, for granted. Certainly, a key requirement for understanding and carrying out Hashem’s word, is humility. After all, Moses is described as the humblest person on earth, we receive the Torah in a desert on the lowest of the mountains, and Hashem speaks to Moses from a lowly burning bush. It seems the message is that it is in the midst of a wilderness that we can more easily awaken to a life filled with Torah, and more easily disavow a life filled with greed for toys.
The Sfas Emes (Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, 1847-1905), tells us the same root of midbar, daled-bais-reish, can mean “to lead.” If midbar can mean this, to lead, it teaches us that as we followed, we trusted whom we were following in the wilderness. We entered the wilderness with the belief that we were free to put our trust fully in Hashem. The Sfas Emes also teaches us that just as the Torah was given to us in the lowly wilderness, a place of void, we too need to see ourselves similarly, egoless, in order to spread the light of Torah. The lesson inside is that the Torah is best acquired when we humble ourselves, when we are “ownerless,” as we are in the vast expanse of the wilderness. It is also, according to Reb Nosson’s teaching, that only when there is achdus, when we are all encamped together, all accounted for, that the Torah is complete. One letter missing means the Torah cannot be read. We are each a letter.
In Bamidbar, one could argue that the number of troops is what really counts, since they are the ones included in the census. Are the Levites really better than other tribes? No. The key to living in harmony is that everyone fulfills their own capability and accepts everyone as others as equally valuable.
But when we read between the lines, when we ask who is not included, we can see how unmentioned people matter too. There may be legitimate reasons why some people are omitted from the census, and, ultimately, from the Torah text, but their exclusion means we may well miss the opportunity to see what they can offer the community.
The Israelites may have needed guidelines for whom to include and whom to exclude from the census described in Bamidbar, but we must remember why even those not counted in the census do, in fact, matter. Today we may count every individual in our community but may still discount how much they have to offer. The missing members in this Torah portion can teach us to reconsider what it really means “to count.” As the numerous stories in the Bible and in our lives remind us, even those not included are important, and all those we now seek to include, genuinely are individuals with much to gain from and offer to our communities. This weeks’s parasha really comes to teach us that we are all in this together, that we all count, and that although there was a census taken of only specific people, everyone counts.
This Shavuot may our study of Torah and keeping it alive, together, as one family wearing a coat of many colors, be filled with love for one another, and may we experience the revelation at Sinai as a communal event of strength to strength. Let us shine our uniqueness to the best of our ability while serving Hashem as individuals…and as a peaceful, loving, and positively contributing part of Klal Yisrael.
Chag Shavuot Sameach.
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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly D’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family are members. They are also active members of Congregation Adat Yeshurun. He may be contacted via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com