[Editor’s note: I originally wrote this in 2004, for an email list regarding the weekly Torah portion. I deliberately put it out after shabbat because, the energy of the parsha does not end with shabbat – it only starts to wane with the ending of shabbat. Think of the shabbat as the full moon for the parsha. It builds starting Wednesday until shabbat where it is at maximum strength. Then, after shabbat, the energy of the parsha wanes as the energy of the next parsha starts to kick in. So this was originally written after shabbat Bamidbar. One last thing: In Jerusalem, where I was living at the time, it was common for people to share what they had learned on the parsha at shabbat meals. With this background, I hope this all makes sense.]
The time has come once again for me to put thoughts of the past week’s Torah portion (parsha) into an email. So here it is. Last week we started a new book (The Torah contains 5 books). In English we refer to the book as Numbers because we start out counting the number of people who left Egypt. In Hebrew, we call the book Bamidbar which means. “In the wilderness,” because it is the first significant word in the book. Now I have to tell you that Bamidbar is a really appropriate name for the parsha, as well as the book, because for the first time since I started sharing my thoughts, shabbat came and I had a total blank in regards to ideas about the parsha. I was struck by a few things, but did I really want to list out the meaning of the names of the 12 tribal leaders? Granted they do have cool names like the name of the leader for the tribe of Reuvan: the power of formation, son of the field of light, or Ephraim: power of listening, son of a nation of gratitude, or Dan (whose name is judgment): brother of helping, son of a nation of enough.
One thing that struck me is that in the listing of the tribal counts, we have spelling variations and sometimes we do a head count and sometimes we don’t. Unfortunately, I don’t know, or have any ideas even, as to what is going on with these variations. So, I felt like I was stuck in a midbar – a wilderness. Then shabbat came, and thank god for shabbat, because I heard two really cool things regarding this parsha. The first came Friday night from the rabbi at the shul I prayed at, rabbi Aaron Leibowitz. He was asking the question what is it we are counting and why? Sometimes we count heads. Other times we count coins. We are not supposed to count Jews because the Jews are supposed to be as numerous as the stars in the sky. And yet haShem is asking for a census. What is going on?
His answer was first to observe that every male (sorry women, but this is what the Torah says) over 20 is counted. This is not an approximation. This is a precise count. Every man counts! And what we learn from that is exactly that: Each person is unique and must be counted! And in this count, we are counting names in order to teach us that each person is important and that each person is an individual. This is why we couldn’t approximate and why we needed each person’s name. On the other hand, we are winding up with a final count. This signifies that while the individual is important, so is the community. We need to find a way to remain an individual while being part of a larger entity and this entity has to allow for individuality within itself.
As I am typing this, I am struck by a Torah I shared before: Aharon’s sons, Abihu and Navidab, desired to come close to haShem and got so close, they could not individuate again. From this we learned that the goal was not to merge with haShem but to connect to the unity of creation and creator, and then to bring a piece of it back into this world. Here too we seem to be saying the same thing: it is important to understand and recognize that you are part of a unified whole (one of the tribes, and then bnei Yisrael/the sons of Israel), but you must not lose yourself in this unity. For each person is unique and has an important contribution to make that can only be made by being uniquely oneself. The trick here is to find the balance between the two – a balance that is ever shifting.
The second idea came from my friend Moshe Neuman while I was having shabbat lunch at his house. He was pointing out that even today we live in a midbar, a wilderness. It looks like we have all this stuff around, buildings and cars etc. But the truth is that it is all an illusion; we truly live in a wilderness. And further, if you change the vowels, bamidbar becomes b’midabaer which means by speaking. HaShem created the world by speaking. And we too are like god in that we can create worlds just be speaking. This is why it is so important to be careful when you speak. Not only can you create, but you can destroy. In Jewish tradition, if you slander someone, it is as if you killed them three times. If you don’t believe this, think about how we have used words to justify genocide or slavery or outright taking of land from people.
OK, I think I am digressing here. To get back to Moshe’s Torah, we live in a wilderness of illusion because we can create or re-create our reality just by speaking it. Hence the play on words between bamidbar and b’midabaer. In fact it is in the bamidbar that haShem midabaer-s the 10 “commandments” to us which is going to happen in a few days on the holiday of Shavuot (pentacost). With 10 words, haShem creates the world. And with 10 utterances from Mount Sinai, the world gets recreated with a new nation, the sons of Israel. And it all takes place in the wilderness.
May everybody find their individual voice and share it out loud so we can create one harmonic symphony that cannot be complete without each and every voice (and we know how many voices there are, so don’t think you can hide :).
Have a good week/shavuah tov, and chag samayach/happy holiday,
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.