Parshas Ki Tisa: More Than Just a Number

We each have numbers that “represent” us.  There are Social Security Numbers and Tax ID numbers.  There are Personal Identification Numbers and Student ID numbers.  We have driver’s license numbers and passport numbers.  And, sadly, many Holocaust survivors have numbers tattooed on their arms.

Assigning people numbers to identify them is an easy way for schools, governments, and other large organizations to keep track of them.  We no longer live in small villages, as we did hundreds of years ago, and it is now harder to keep track of all the people.  Yet we still refer to ourselves by our names, not our “numbers.”  To be referred to by numbers alone seems somehow degrading.

And perhaps even these numbers are not strictly necessary.  When Moses takes the census in this week’s parsha, there are surely too many Jews for him to know all of them, and yet he deliberately does not count them.  Rather than take a census by counting, he collects half a coin from each person and counts those.  Then he is able to know how many Jews there are.

Why do we not count Jews? In this week’s parsha, Moses is told, “When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their numbers, let each one give to G‑d an atonement for his soul when they are counted, then there will be no plague among them when they are counted.”  Later, King David also counts the Jews, but this time the conventional way – and a plague strikes.

This is because counting individuals singles them out for judgment.  As a community, we hope to have enough merits to avert any negative judgment.  However, as individuals, many of us may have too many sins for our current merits to overcome.

Additionally, viewing a community as a whole entity, rather than as a collection of individuals, brings blessing to the community.  The Talmud teaches that blessing is not found “in something that has been weighed, nor in something that has been measured, nor in something that has been counted,” so that if we want blessings we should not count.  In other words, when we Jews are united, we all receive blessings, but we when we divide ourselves up into individual units, we invite individual judgments.

Thus, if we want to receive blessings and help our fellow Jews to receive blessings, we must be united.  Rather than counting ourselves and dividing ourselves up, we must join together.  Shabbat is an excellent time to practice this by coming to Shabbat services, where you can spend time with a nice group of other Jews.  You can also join us for our upcoming Purim gathering.  We are looking forward to having so many people that we could not count them all even if we tried!

Shabbat shalom!

Read more on Parshas Ki Tisa: Parshas Parah: Taking the Bull by the Horns