Parashat Bamidbar, which opens the book of “Numbers,” is concerned largely with census taking. The Torah has an ambivalent attitude towards this counting of human beings. On the one hand, here and elsewhere a detailed in-depth census is indeed taken. On the other hand, as we learn in Shmot (Exodus 30:12) and in a later story about David (2 Samuel 24), counting is considered dangerous, something that can bring on divine punishment and plague.
The Emotional Dangers of Counting: Exclusion
What are some of the emotional dangers of counting people? One is exclusion. Generally, when some people are counted, others are not counted, creating an in group and an out group. Here in our parsha, those counted are only men of a certain age, those considered yotze tzava, capable of military combat. Although such an exclusive count makes sense for a specific targeted purpose like preparing for war, there still can be damaging effects in how this exclusivity is perceived and experienced in the culture, creating a sense of who “counts,” who ultimately matters, and making some people feel left out of the “important” group, I think we can all think of times and places where we felt excluded in some way, “discounted,” on the outside of the circle of people who officially “count.” When some are counted, others are necessarily discounted and devalued.
Reductionist
Of course, counting can also be hurtful to those included in the count. Human counting is usually done for a particular utilitarian purpose – here, for instance, for war and encampment. In this scheme, humans are seen as valuable only in an extrinsic and incomplete way, for one particular trait or aspect of their identity, their gender or productivity or role, because of its usefulness for one purpose. There is thus something inherently reductionist and dehumanizing about such a census, turning a person into a number, becoming just a cog in an institutional wheel, only allowing us to see one aspect of a person, not the person in their wholeness and intrinsic value with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies that make us individuals. We want to be seen in our wholeness.
Human Counting vs Divine Counting
These dangers are features of human counting, of counting as it is done on the human plane, in the concrete world of work and war, of organization and social society. And all of that is, to some extent, necessary. But there is another plane, the divine plane. And Rashi takes us there with his first comment on parashat Bamidbar:
מתוך חיבתן לפניו מונה אותם כל שעה
“Out of God’s hibah, deep affection or love, for them, God counts them all the time.”
Even as we enter the dangers of the human realm of counting in parashat Bamidbar, Rashi offers us something else to hold on to, a vision of another plane of counting, a parallel heavenly counting that can ground us as we go about the human plane.
Out of Love
“Out of God’s love for them, God counts them all the time.” This divine counting has no practical agenda. It is not oriented towards setting up the camp or preparing for war or organizing workers. It stems from one simple sustaining force – hibah, love. Mitokh, “out of” their belovedness. It is as if God has a deep well of hibah, of affection, and the counting comes mitokh, drawn out of this well, this neverending source of love. No ulterior motive. Just because I love you, God says. I don’t count you to figure out how many soldiers we have to go to war. Or how to organize the camp. I count you because you are precious to me and I love you.
Like a Pearl or a Star
When love is the source of counting, the counting feels different. We are no longer cogs in a wheel, but intrinsically precious and valuable, each one distinct and essential, a stand alone world, each one like a pearl, picked up, admired and then placed on a string of other pearls.
Or like a star in a sky filled with stars. Rashi begins the book of Shmot, as well, with a comment about counting and divine love. There it is in reference to the repetition of the enumeration of the 70 descendants of Yaakov who entered Egypt. Rashi explains: lehodia hibatan shenimshilu lekokhavim. The repetition is “in order to make known their belovedness as they are compared to kokhavim, to stars.” That’s what it means to be counted by God. To be viewed as a star, each one stunning and spectacular in its own right, and all together part of a vast network, the tapestry of the sky.
Impossible to Be Counted
These stars, they cannot be counted on the human plane. God speaks to Avraham about his descendants using this same root, manah : lo yukhal limanot, “they will not be capable of being counted (Genesis 13:16).” Normally, we understand this to mean that they will be too numerous to be counted. But perhaps it also means this – that we are, like stars, beyond measure in our value, uncountable on the human plane, too wild, too spectacular, too unique, to be contained in a number. Only God can count us rightly, as befits our true nature.
What It Feels Like to Be Counted by God
What would it feel like to be counted by God? Rashi uses the present tense here – moneh, “counts.” God counts us, right now, in this moment, at each present moment, God counts us with love. Maybe you can feel yourself being drawn up out of that deep well of love or picked up from the sand like a pearl or a sparkling star, just you, right now, God scooping you up in your crumpled state on the ground, scooping you up to admire and love and value and count, to show you that you count, to let you know that you matter. See yourself for a moment through the loving eyes of God, as a bright shining star, unlike any other in the universe, a piece of the divine, whole in and of yourself. God is moneh you, counts you, gives you value, at each and every moment, by breathing life into you. With each breath, God says – I love you; you count. Can you sense the depth of that love and affection for you, like an embrace, a wellspring, an ocean, holding you, loving you into mattering, into knowing your own value, a value beyond your work or role or external identity, an intrinsic value beyond this world?
Separate, but Also Belonging
And somehow, with the very same motion of counting, in a way that only God can do, you also become part of the whole. You belong; you are not separate but connected, integrated, without losing your own wholeness and distinction and importance. To be counted is to at the very same moment be separated out as distinct – a separate number, 1, 2, 3 – and through the same motion to become part of something larger, to return to belonging, to be linked to the rest.
Maybe you can imagine a large circle of dancers all across the earth. Notice the times and the ways you have on occasion felt excluded, disconnected, separated from this circle, notice that feeling of separation, and feel how, through God’s view of you as a precious star, you are returned into the circle of belonging. Maybe on the human plane it is only men of a certain age who get counted, but not on the divine plane. On the divine plane, we are each loved back into the circle, each a being created betzelem elokim “in the divine image,” each of us embraced so fully that our sense of our own mattering helps us return to the circle from which we were excluded, helps us open ourselves to re-engaging and joining hands once again. God counts us with love, and in so doing, restores our sense of intrinsic value and returns us to the circle, to the web, to connection and love on earth, too. We are loved into counting, both as separate entities and as integral members of the whole. We are part of the divine minyan, the divine count. When the counting is done out of love, no one stands outside.
The Love Is Unshakable
There is another element to this divine count that is important for us; it is constant and unshakable. Rashi emphasizes this point: moneh otam kol sha’ah, “God counts us all the time.” When we left Egypt, God counted us, Rashi explains, and when we fell down at the sin of the Golden Calf, God counted us again. When we are low and when we are high, when we succeed and when we fail. When we are redeemed and when we are disgraced and disappointing. God is that steady, continuously and lovingly counting us at every moment. We don’t earn it and we can’t lose it.
Out of God’s deep well of love for us, God continually counts us, helping us re-count ourselves, revalue ourselves as counting, as mattering, each one a precious star in the sky.
Photo by Min An at Pexels
I like this very much, I find it comforting. Thank you.