To Be Counted Among
Them
D’var Torah for
Parashat B’midbar
It had been a field of green dotted with grey stones, but
overnight it turned into a sea of waving red-white-and-blue.
It’s a tradition now, one that even has a name: “Flags
In.” Right before Memorial Day, hundreds
of thousands of American flags are placed at cemeteries where American service
men and women are buried. Since its inception
at Arlington National Cemetery in 1948, the tradition has spread throughout the
country, lending poignancy to a day that has otherwise become an opportunity
for family barbecues and store sales.
I have to admit that these small flags have a powerful
effect on me today. They are silent
witness to carnage and destruction, to loss and bereavement. They mark where the infinite potential of
life ended, leaving behind only emptiness and silence.
In response to the countless losses of war and violence, the
Hebrew Revival poet Shaul Tchernichovsky wrote, “See O Earth! we have been so
wasteful.” Nothing but numbers and ageing memories remain where once life was
teeming, where children played and couples embraced, where old men and women sat
and reminisced about the past.
Numbers.
Our lives are defined by numbers: Social Security, bank accounts, passports,
drivers’ licenses and so many more.
Full, unbound lives are reduced to something we can put a handle on and
define, with a clear beginning, middle and an end.
But is there no more? Are we reduced to numbers, like so
many distant stars that reflect completed journeys through the void of space?
The Torah thinks not.
By one of those coincidences that occur every few years,
this week’s Torah reading, the first portion in the book of Numbers—known by
its Hebrew title B’midbar (“In the
Wilderness,” Numbers 1:1—4:20)—falls on the Shabbat of Memorial Day Weekend as
well as on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.
As befitting the English title of this, the fourth book of the Torah, B’midbar contains many lists and
numbers. At God’s command, Moses takes a
census of the Israelites, tribe by tribe, faction by faction. As the lists compound, we see an orderliness
that reminds us of the rows and rows of graves of the fallen heroes.
And yet B’midbar is
anything but about death. It’s about life
and survival. It’s about fulfilling
duties and responsibilities to community and nation. For all its seemingly repetitive lists, B’midbar elevates concepts into ideals,
reminding us that these long-gone men and women were nothing short of giants, heroes
who fought not only against oppression but also against the nothingness, the
lack of meaning and purpose that life would be were it not for them. Their values are reflected in their names, their
lives were dedicated to concepts that Judaism sanctifies: faith, loyalty, generosity, brotherhood.
The values we pursue and uphold give us our names and
elevate us from the minuscule speck that we would otherwise be.
The holiday of Shavuot has several layers of meaning. In ancient days—before Judaism—it represented
the rebirth of springtime. The wise
sages of our people, some 2000 years ago, determined that Shavuot also celebrates
the giving of the Torah to the Israelites.
In modern Israel, nothing says summertime to children more than the
holiday of Shavuot. But as the school
year draws to its end, celebrations are held at which first grade children
receive their own copies of the Torah.
It’s a moment fraught with symbolism.
Even if the children don’t know it yet, they have just participated in the
ongoing enactment of receiving Torah, a process begun thousands of years ago in
the Wilderness of Sinai, b’midbar Sinai. Their school year may be ending, but
these children have just begun their own journey in the wilderness, Torahs in
hand.
The common saying has it that “it’s a jungle out
there.” The metaphor the Torah uses is
slightly different. Rather than a
jungle, it’s a wilderness, a desert, out there.
The similarities are obvious, but so are the differences. The wilderness has no water, little
vegetation and only sporadic life. Yet
what the Torah sees in it is its potential.
All it needs is a little rain, a bit of attention and care, and even the
desert can bloom. Overnight, the
wilderness can come alive.
To the ancient Rabbis, the Torah is a guidebook to taming
the wilderness. Torah adds meaning and
purpose to life, elevating our otherwise futile and even sorrowful existence to something akin to Godliness. Like the
wilderness, embedded deep within each of us is the potential not only of a
meaningful life, but also of greatness.
Unlike silent tombstones, the lists enumerated in B’midbar speak not of a dark and silent
past, but rather of a bright future teeming with life. This transformation, B’midbar tells us, is not
impossible. It’s possible for each of us
to rise, to be more than a mere number, to be counted among the heroes, the
remarkable and the extraordinary.
Similarly, the wasteland doesn’t have to remain that. The hatred, the violence, the endless wars and
wastefulness don’t have to be the legacy we leave behind us. The Torah—God’s gift to humanity—is more than
an enumeration of the dead. One of the
terms by which we call the Torah is Eitz Chayim—a
tree of life. The alignment of holidays
this weekend serves to remind us that life is not only precarious and short, it
is also much too precious. It contains possibilities
that must not be wasted, a promise we can fulfill for ourselves and for our
children.
May our deeds transform the wilderness we all too often see
around us into a living, fruitful orchard.
May green fields never again be stained with shed drops of red blood. May peace, gratitude and dignity be the
banner we raise high above all our homes, on this Memorial Day, Shabbat and
Shavuot, and on all days to the end of time.
Kein y’hi ratzon.
May this be God’s will.
© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman
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