Parshat Bamidbar
by Dovid Levine

Sefer Bamidbar, in our tradition and in others, has a second name: Sefer HaPikudim, the Book of Numbers. This befitting title is earned in the second pasuk of the parsha, when Hashem tells Moshe: “Take a census of all of the congregation of Israel, by tribe, listing the names of every male, head by head". The parsha proceeds, and a number is recorded, 603,550 Israelites over the age of 20.

Strangely, the haftorah (Hosea 2:1) starts with an entirely contradictory idea: "The number of the people of Israel will be like sands of the seas, immeasurable and uncountable". Adding to His other nuanced promises that Avraham's descendants would be as plentiful as the dust of the earth (Gen 13:16) and as important as the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5), Hashem attests to our future endurance, able to withstand the torrential pressures of generations of persecution and hardship. The question thus arises: With all the emphasis on the Jewish people’s incalculable value, why is Moshe commanded to count them, limiting their importance to a finite number?

I believe that the answer becomes obvious when the circumstances of this divinely-commanded census are analyzed. The Israelites were camped in the desert, waiting to enter Eretz Yisrael. Therefore, they needed to create a group, an army per se, one that would be ready to invade and capture Israel on Hashem’s command. It is for this reason that women, Levites – the non-combatant priestly class – and all men under 20 were not counted; they were not fit to serve in the army Moshe was assigned to create!

Hashem has blessed the Jewish people many times with importance, endurance, and an inestimable uniqueness. However, this is not always enough. Even with His command, we still needed an army to conquer biblical Israel, as we needed in 1948, and 1967. As essential as the individual is, sometimes the congregation is just as important. As we remember this week on Yom Yerushalayim, sometimes the group, a finite army of Am Yisrael fighting for a common cause, be it achdut or fighting for unification, is more important than anything else.


Chag Sameach, and Shabbat Shalom