Frequently, numbers are more than just numbers. Frequently, numbers become a shorthand for a narrative. For the past year, we have grown increasingly aware of the asking “about the numbers”. Regarding the Pandemic, we are concerned about numbers that tell us the rate of spread, the total number of Ontarians that received one vaccine, the total number of Ontarians that are completely vaccinated. Lately, we are focused upon the number of new cases that will indicate an end to the current lockdown in Ontario. Numbers of course are not confined to the Pandemic. The number 6,000,000 is shorthand for the Holocaust. Unfortunately, there are those who look at numbers in order to justify their own bias or moral relativism. The current rocket attacks and violence in Gaza and Israel are a case in point. For those who see numbers as the narrative, at the time of writing this stood at a death toll of 62. 15 children have died. 1 Israeli child, 15 Palestinian Gazan children. Hamas has fired over 1000 rockets over the last several days. When looking at the numbers, those living in Gaza have experienced more loss of life and more injury than those living in Israel. No, numbers don’t lie. However, numbers also don’t offer a complete explanation. So when the chief prosecutor for the ICC (International Criminal Court), Ms. Fatou Bensouda tweets: “I note with great concern the escalation of violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in and around Gaza, and the possible commission of crimes under the [ICC’s guiding] Rome Statute,” then numbers have lost their original objective empirical value and instead have become a subjective tool for moral relativism. The manipulation of numbers does not undo the criminal nature of what Hamas has perpetrated with its numerous rocket launches. In fact, the only number that should matter to the ICC is the number “1”.If even one rocket launched by Hamas that targeted a civilian location, a crime occurred and Hamas ought to be prosecuted for perpetrating crimes of humanity upon both Jew and Arab. Any country that experienced just one such launching would be well within its right to defend its population and dismantle or destroy the possibility of any future launching.
This week, we begin reading the 4th of the 5 books of the Torah, Sefer Bemidbar, the Book of Numbers. This week’s Parsha is the same name Bemidbar. The Book of Numbers is aptly named; the book begins with counting, the counting of people, a census. God commands Moshe to take a census, MiBen Esrim Shana V’Mala Kol Yotzei Tzava B’Yisroel – of all males over the age of twenty, everyone who goes out in the Legion of Israel (1:3). Once the number of fighting age males has been established by tribe, each tribe is placed in a specific formation around the Ark. This will be the formation in which B’nai Yisroel travels from the foot of Sinai to Eretz Canaan. Finally, in the Tribe of Levi, the Priests are counted. However because Levi’s only responsibility is the Ark and the Mishkan; they will not be able to hold land in Eretz Canaan, nor do they fight. Rather they are now counted and assigned specific functions in terms of maintaining the Mishkan.
God ordered a census of people. However, for whom is the counting? Certainly, God is God and already knows the number of souls that comprise B’nai Yisroel as well as those able to fight. When God wants Moshe and Israel, or anyone for that matter, to do something for himself the language indicates it. In the Book of Genesis, God commanded Avraham to Lech Lecha – Go for yourself. Later in the Book of Numbers God will command Moshe to Shelach Lecha send for yourself. Here in Parsha Bemidbar, the first parsha in the Book of Numbers, God commands Moshe to Se’u et Rosh Kol Adat Bnai Yisroel - count the heads. Since Lecha- for you does not appear; it would seem that the counting is not for B’nai Yisroel nor Moshe, but rather for God. So, why does God need or want a counting? We have already been told that B’nai Yisroel is Am Segula – a treasured nation. A "treasured nation", by definition, must possess some type of intrinsic value. Each individual has value and from that, each individual has a purpose. Parshah Bemidbar demonstrates that there is an intrinsic value in the individual. Halachically, we know this because the legal principle of Pikuach Nefesh, Saving a Soul exists. This principle appears in the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Shabbat, “the saving of life supersedes the Sabbath (Shabbat 132a). There is a Midrash in Tractate Sanhedrin which expresses the individual’s importance to God, and therefore God’s desire to count us. “If a human being stamped several coins with the same die, they would all resemble one another. But the King of kings stamps all human beings from the mold of the first person; and yet not one of them is identical to the other one. Therefore every individual has merit and is obliged to say “for my sake the world was created”. (San4:5).
Indeed, numbers are important. Numbers are necessary to have a society remain organized. Governments routinely take a census of their population in order to understand demographics and political representation. It would seem that it is very easy to lose oneself and an individual’s narrative amid all these numbers and statistics. Indeed, numbers can serve as a shorthand for understanding a narrative. Unfortunately, numbers can be manipulated to justify moral relativism and cloud the differences between good and evil. Each individual has a narrative, a code that allows survival. The same holds true for societies and nations, The numbers that are coming from Israel and Gaza speak of pain and suffering, fear, and terror. It is our sincere hope that the pain, suffering, death, fear, and terror ceases. Perhaps those that want to investigate the criminality of recent events in Gaza and Israel should be reminded that the numbers don’t speak of the criminality; narrative and context do.
Rav Yitz
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