Parshat Naso  14 Sivan 5762, May 25 2002

When Numbers Really Count

Efrat, Israel - "Lift up the heads of the sons of Gershon.... From thirty years of age to fifty years of age shall you count (tifkod) them..." (Numbers 4:2,3).

Each book of the five Books of the Bible (Pentateuch) is given its own special name by our Sages: the first is the Book of Creation, the second the Book of Redemption, the third the Book of Sanctity (or the Torah of the Priests) and the fifth, the repetition of the torah; each of these names describe the most fundamental content of that book. However, this fourth book of the Bible is called by our Sages P'kudim, the Counts or the Censuses, very similar to our English name, Numbers, which was believed to have originated with the King James version. Many of the later commentaries (the Netziv, for example) are perplexed by this nomenclature. After all, a census is a purely technical act of counting; it is hardly an apt description of the dream and the despair, the resoluteness and the rebelliousness, which make this book perhaps the most compelling of all the books of the Bible. And why use the plural form P'kudim or Censuses for the title, apparently taking into account not only the first census in the opening chapters of BaMidbar but the second census in Chapter 26? Why does the Bible see the necessity of recording this second census, and what makes these two "numberings" important enough to be worthy of titling this fourth book of the Bible?

I believe the direction towards understanding lies in a crucial difference of phraseology between both censuses: the book of Numbers opens, "Lift up the heads of the entire congregation of the children of Israel in accordance with their families, their father's houses, and the number of individual names of every male, from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel..." (Numbers 1:2,3); towards the end of the book, the Bible introduces the second census, "Lift up the heads of the entire congregation of the children of Israel from twenty years old and upward, according to their father's houses, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel" (Numbers 26:2). Noticeably absent from this second census are the familial ancestry - which I assume to mean our patriarchs and matriarchs - as well as the personal fore-names of each individual; only the last names of the "father's house" are included, the only similarity to the first census.

In order to understand the reason for the change in formulation, it is important to take stock of the enormous sea-change which occurred in the attitude and consciousness of the nation between both censuses. The Book of Numbers opens with faith in a glorious future for a nation miraculously freed from Egyptian enslavement, with the tribes and their banners united around the Divine Sanctuary with an army poised to conquer the Promised Land. Hence this census numbers each individual together with his patriarchal ancestry - after all, Abraham bequeathed the vision of ethical monotheism in the Promised Land as his "covenant between the pieces" at the very dawn of Jewish history - as well as each individualized first name; the very Hebrew word for census, mifkad, is the root word for tafkid, or purpose, and during the optimistic mood with which this census was undertaken, every individual felt that he was an important participant in a sacred mission.

But then tragically this exalted goal was dashed against the rocks of despair. The nation suddenly becomes querulous and complaining (mito'nenim), hungry for meat, fish, watermelon, onions, garlic - anything except the manna they received each day from heaven (Numbers 11:1-5); they go along with the majority of the scouts who were frightened of attempting entry into Israel, rebel twice against Moses' leadership, and hear from the Almighty that their generation is doomed to die out in the desert.

What happened to have caused such a degeneration, such a descent from an exalted tower into a deep-down pit? Rav Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, famed Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin and author of the Biblical commentary HaAmek Davar, maintains that the clue is to be found in the difficult Biblical word mito'nenim, usually translated as complaining or kvetching, which describes the Israelites suddenly seeking a large variety of foods which were not available in the desert - quails, watermelons, fish, leeks, onions and garlic (Numbers 11:1-5). As we know very well from our small children - and even from ourselves - that when we seem to desire many different things which cancel each other out, in truth we are really missing a very different substance, separate and apart than those things we thought we needed and we supposed we wanted. As the incisive and sensitive founder of logotherapy, Victor Frankel, suggests, the deepest drive impelling and compelling most human beings is not the drive for power as taught by Adler and Jung - but is rather the drive for meaning, for purpose, for significance.

Hence Rav Berlin maintains that the Hebrew word mito'nenim derives from anna, whither, as in the Hebrew phrase anna v'anna, wandering hither and thither, unsure of direction, lacking a compass. The Israelites had been deeply inspired at Sinai, declared that they will do and obey G-d's words, committed themselves to become a light unto the gentiles as a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. So was their mood at the first census, imbued with fealty to their patriarchal and matriarchal traditions, each individual inspired to play a unique role in the sacred goal of Israel.

They lost this inspiration, however, and so degenerated into a quarrelsome, querulous and dissatisfied rabble. By the second census, they no longer had a sense of destiny derived from fealty to an ancient tradition, nor did each individual feel himself consecrated to a sacred mission. Indeed, the tragedy of the Book of Numbers can best be expressed by a study of both censuses - and what and why transpired between them!

Shabbat Shalom.

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