The Sum of All Numbers
D’var Torah for Parashat Bamidbar
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
June 1, 2022
As most people see it, more is better.
We measure success by how much we earn, or by how large our homes, backyards and cars are. Elections are often decided not only by the number of votes a candidate gets, but also by how much money enters their coffers. Competitions are won by numbers, as are bets; while “influencers” get their title by the number of followers they have on social media.
In our world we organize our lives by numbers—months and days, years and anniversaries.
Our fundamental sacred text, the Bible, is also filled with numbers—beginning with the number of days God worked in creating the world, going on to the size of Noah’s ark and the number of days that the ark remained borne upon the waters of the Flood.
Yet some things are immeasurable, such as God’s promise to Abraham, “I will bestow my blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore.”
Some things cannot be measured. Values exceed any effort to quantify or estimate. Holiness expands to no end, while evil plumbs the inestimable depths of human imagination and capacity.
Superstition has it that counting people is bad. This superstition is reflected several times in the Bible, where a direct census of the people leads to plagues and other disasters. In the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, Moses avoids this mistake by counting not the people, but rather the half-shekel coin that each individual must bring forth to be counted.
This may reflect the superstitious belief, but it also has at least two important lessons for us.
First is that everyone is equal in the eyes of God. No one, for richer or poorer, is of greater importance than another. Before God, all are equal. There are no kings and no servants; a half-shekel’s worth each, no more and no less.
The other important lesson is that human beings, no matter how insignificant in the universe, also possess infinite potential. When we think of people merely as numbers, we become statistics, soul-less bodies without imagination, without the power to love or hate, to feel pain or inflict it. Yet the truth is that in these respects humanity is almost limitless.
In this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar (“In the Wilderness,” Numbers 1:1-4:20), Moses is commanded to take a census of the Israelites. But the purpose of this census is not merely to count the Israelites, but rather to make each one count. To make everyone matter. To enable each of them to rise to their full and unique potential.
The Rabbis teach that the value of the life of each human being is equivalent to the entire universe. Each one of us contains an infinite number of possibilities. We are truly as immeasurable as the stars in the heavens and the sands on the seashore. To think otherwise of ourselves, or anyone else, is to make a mockery of the endless potential planted within us by the mysterious and infinite force we call God.
© 2022 by Boaz D. Heilman
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