Mati Kirschenbaum
Desert – Midbar. Parched earth. Scorching sun. Bitterly cold nights. Hardly conditions anyone would call inviting. Every time I start reading parashat Bamidbar I feel similarly not invited by the text to continue reading. Bamidbar is the first parasha of the Book of Numbers for a good reason. Truly, it has enough numbers to make us wonder whether Moshe should not have stayed in Egypt to become its chief statistician. Luckily for the Jewish people – he did not. However, he did leave us with the book of Numbers to struggle with. And so we sometimes struggle to find meaning in the passages, which – at first glance – seem as relevant to the modern eye as a national census from a bygone era. However, when we look closer, we shall discover that this Parasha deals with the question concerning the role fulfilled by each individual within the world. Is each and every one of us nothing but a number in a census? Or perhaps every single person has their own immense inherent value? Let’s search for answers to these questions in parasha Bamidbar itself.
The first section of the parasha gives us an insight into the management of the census. Numbers 1:5-18 enumerates the heads of the tribes and assigns them with a task of accompanying their houses during the census. Interestingly, they also had to check the identity of their tribe members. Rashi explains that verse by saying that census participants brought with them records of their pedigrees and witnesses of their birth claims, so that each one should trace his genealogy to a tribe. If Rashi’s interpretation is true, I do not envy the work of the heads of the tribes. I also wonder how the heads of the houses treated the 1853rd Israelite whose pedigree had to be confirmed on a certain day. I would say they perceived him to be just a unit in the census, who needs to be classified properly. They definitely did not have time to appreciate him as a person.
Another take on human value can be found in Numbers 3,1. It reads:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]These are the descendants of Moses and Aaron on the day that the Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai.[/perfectpullquote]
Interestingly, only the descendants of Aaron are actually mentioned. One may ask: why is Moshe mentioned in this case? Tractate Sanhedrin 19b provides us with an answer to this question. It states that the descendants of Aaron are also considered to be descendants of Moses because he taught them Torah. It elaborates that whoever teaches Torah to the son of his fellow man, Scripture regards it as if he had begotten him. Sanhedrin 19b also helps us find the answer pertaining to our initial question pertaining to the value of an individual. It clearly views the contribution to the transmission of intergenerational knowledge as an act that earns an individual a lasting value.
Reading on, we come to Numbers 3:45-47. It states:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Take the Levites instead of all the firstborns among the children of Israel who required redemption, who are in excess of the Levites, You shall take five shekels per head, according to the holy shekel.[/perfectpullquote]
The value of the five holy shekels is the value of approximately 117 grams of pure silver. It might not be exactly little, but this is definitely not the value we want to be given. According to Rashi, that was the selling price of Joseph. This explanation casts a new light on the redemption of the excessive firstborns. The firstborns are just given an earthly price, just like Joseph when he was sold into slavery. I would argue that their value in the eyes of God, however, is higher. After all, Joseph was apparently worth much more to God than to his brothers, in spite of all the character flaws he exhibited as a young man. What is more, the firstborns, who were not in excess, were redeemed by the service of the Levites, the steadfast and faithful servants of the Almighty. From the fact that firstborns could only be redeemed by members of such a valuable community, we might deduce that every redeemed Israelite had an immense value in the eyes of the Eternal. And it is this value, not the monetary price of the excessive un-redeemed, which should be our main focus when we speak of parashat Bamidbar. This value is higher than price tags given us by others, just like Joseph’s potential greatly exceeded any price slave traders were willing to pay. However, our potential value is not predestined, we have to earn it, by growing as humans like Joseph in Egypt and by helping others to grow, behaving like Moses who taught Torah to Aaron’s sons. Just like Joseph and Moses, we earn our value by living up to God’s expectations of us. This is a challenge we all have to face, we can not be redeemed from it even if we are firstborn males. Undoubtedly, living up to our innate potential sometimes seems to be a daunting and lonely task. Fortunately, we were given the Torah which – when read carefully – tells us that we are all valuable to God. And we can find these reassuring words even in such seemingly technical Torah portions as parashat Bamidbar. Shabbat Shalom!
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