Parashat Bamidbar, 5772, Jenni Mangel
Parashat Bamidbar
May 26, 2012 / 5 Sivan, 5772
Jenni Mangel
Numbers. The book has two names.
Let’s start with Numbers. The book opens with a census. We have a tendency to gloss over the census. It’s not sexy. It doesn’t tell us people’s professions or the language they spoke at home. And, let’s not forget that it is a military census and so counts only the males over the age of twenty who are able to perform military service. We miss out hearing about so many Israelites: the women, the children, the elderly, and others who would serve the community in non-military ways.
The detail in the parsha doesn’t stop there, of course. We read about a second census of the priests later in the chapter, and then learn in detail about the marching and camping order of the tribes that will be followed through the rest of the desert journey.
But lets consider the census. It is a counting. By taking a count of the people who entered the desert the Israelites were taking stock of their community. They asked the questions: Who are we? How many are we? How do we divide into our separate tribes or sub-communities? How do we work together?
When I read the text this week it reminded me of the opening and closing flag ceremony at the summer camp I went to. It was a labor Zionist summer camp and it was the 1980s and the camp movement was deeply tied to the kibbutz movement in Israel. We opened and closed our camp days at the flagpole with a counting of campers and staff. This tradition stemmed both from practices of the early pioneers in Israel, the chalutzim, who often set up a kibbutz settlement overnight in the deserts of the post WWI British Palestine.
The early kibbutznikim counted their community in the morning and recounted in the evening to ensure they did not lose someone during the day or over night. It was a practice for security and safety. But it must have been a powerful setting of culture as well. To say to each member of the kibbutz community: you matter. You count. We counted you. And we count on you. Each member of the community filled a necessary role and was therefore a critical link in the survival of the settlement.
Fast forward in time and space and we can find that we still count in our own community in 2012. We count children on field trips. We count our guests before a festive meal to make sure everyone has arrived.
But we also count in a non-counting way. We count our friends and people in our support networks. We count our elected officials, our clergy, and other community leaders. We count our neighbors, our shop-keepers, our physicians, and our farmers. We also count on these individuals in our life to be part of our puzzle. We count on each other to fill a necessary role and to be a critical link in our survival as individuals and our survival as a community.
There is something special about the fact that this parasha of counting falls right at the end of the counting of the Omer. The detail in b’midbar, the details for counting the omer are specific. We are to count the days and the weeks in a carefully prescribed manner. The days count. The weeks count. Each one affords us a new beginning, a new chance of reflection of action, of coming closer to God.
We are, right now so close to shavuot, figuratively, if not literally, in a period of waiting, of wandering, of searching. We are in a wilderness. B’midbar. In a desert.
And even as we are in that wilderness, with the coming holiday so close, the calendar gives us a new beginning. B’midbar is a new book, starting a new type story, but towards the end of the larger narrative. The Israelites are out of Egypt but they are not yet able to enter the promised land. For two generations they will move through the desert. That is a long time to be in a desert.
Desert environments are extreme. They are harsh. Resources are scarce. They are also beautiful. They are rich with plants and animals that have found ways to thrive despite the harsh, extreme scarcity. In the field of ecology there is an idea that life in desert environments has forced organisms to evolve in a way that honors that which is most essential for survival. There is little room for frivolity or distraction in the desert.
But in the desert, the sky is really big. There is a lot of space. There is a lot of time. The stars at night are truly visible in an indescribable expanse. The openness of the desert calls out for exploration, discovery, and existence.
We know that the Israelites will spend their years in the desert in preparation for entering the promised land. The narrative and commentaries describe this time as a transition – a time to leave behind communal ideas and behaviors and to embrace new faith, traditions and practices. The experience in the desert gave the Israelites necessary time for communal searching – time for them to determine what was most essential for the survival of the Jewish people.
Each of us are presented with soul searching transitions throughout our lives. We work so hard to achieve a goal, a marker, a life cycle moment. And then what? We reflect on what we’ve achieved and consider what is next. We take stock in our lives to determine what is most important to us.
Our wandering can feel unfocused. Like we are not purposefully in the desert and wandering but that we are lost and need desperately to find our oasis and the elements essential for our physical and spiritual survival.
But the searching, longing, and exploring can lead us to focus explicitly on a new goal. We begin a new story that continues the first.
The times of wandering can be slow and arduous. They can also be revealing and celebratory. They can be individual and isolated. They can be exposed and communal. They can be all of these things all at the same time.
On this Shabbat B’midbar and into the Shavuot holiday: May we use the time in our wilderness, individually and collectively, to continue learning what is most essential for our survival. And may each of us know that we count and that people, and God, are counting on us.
Shabbat Shalom.