The parsha and this new book of “Numbers” begin with a census, though the Torah is famously ambivalent about the counting of people. In this meditation we look at some of the emotional dangers of being counted (or discounted) as features of a counting that happens specifically on the human plane. We then explore the possibility of a different kind of counting that happens on the divine plane, a counting described by the first Rashi of our parsha, which speaks of God continually counting us out of love. The meditation offers an opportunity to inhabit this experience of being counted by God with love, understanding this counting as the way in which God “loves us into counting,” loves us into a sense of our own significance, how much we count and matter.
Sources (in the order in which they appear in the meditation):
Numbers 1
Exodus 30:12 and 2 Samuel 24
Rashi on Numbers 1:1
Rashi on Exodus 1:1
Genesis 13:16
Photo by Magda Ehlers at Pexels
