When we talk about numbers, there’s a point where the
numbers become almost inconceivable because of the vastness and the size of
them. When we think in small numbers, we
can imagine four people, we can imagine ten people, we can even imagine what
two hundred, three hundred people look like.
And with sporting venues we can maybe even get up to fifty, sixty
thousand. But once we start getting
above those kind of numbers into the hundreds of thousands, it’s really hard to
imagine what that means and what that’s like.
And, in some ways, the numbers can lose a sense of meaning.
This week’s Torah Portion of Bamidbar begins with just that
kind of list of numbers. As we take the
census of the Israelite males over the age of twenty in the wilderness. At this point, as we begin numbering off the
different tribes, we get numbers of forty-six thousand five hundred, fifty-nine
thousand three hundred, forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty and so
on. The vastness of these numbers is
hard to imagine. Ultimately concluding
with the total number of Israelite males age twenty and over at six hundred and
three thousand five hundred and fifty.
The implication must have been that if that was the males
alone over the age of twenty, there were probably something like two million
Israelites in the wilderness when the census was taken. This contrasts with the book of Shemot,
Exodus, which begins with the names of Jacob’s twelve sons who went down to
Egypt and we’re told that seventy souls went down to Egypt with Jacob because
Joseph was there already.
From seventy to six hundred and three thousand five hundred
and fifty if not more. It is clear that
in the four hundred and thirty years in Egypt and the one year in the
wilderness, we, as a people, have grown from a family into a real community, a
nation. Amidst the enormity of the
numbers of the census, it would be easy to lose sight of the individual people
who made up those Israelites counted by Moses.
In contrast with the book of Exodus, Shemot which begins
with the lists of the names of Jacob’s sons, we have this six hundred and three
thousand five hundred and fifty, an almost incomprehensible number. But, yet we still have individuals. Because before we get those numbers, we’re
told of the twelve people who will help Moses and Aaron with the counting of
the Israelites. From Reuben Elizur son of
Shedeur, from Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai, from Judah Nahshon, son of
Amminadab – and, so on and so forth. We
remember that despite the growth, despite how far we have come from a family
into a nation – individuals still matter.
And that nation is still made up of individuals and each one
of those six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty people count as
well. We’ve come a long way from the
family that moved down to Egypt and grown exponentially but at the same time we
remember, no how big the nation, the people or the community, it still, at its
core, about the individuals of which its comprised.
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