Shabbat Be-Midbar
Written by Rabbi Professor Marc Saperstein Friday, 30 May 2008
The book known in Jewish tradition as Be-Midbar [Sinai] , “In the Wilderness” [of Sinai]” is of course generally known by a very different name, “Numbers”. This reflects the content of the first chapter of the book: instructions from God to Moses to take a census of the Israelite people, tribe by tribe, followed by the results of the census: the number of males aged 20 and over from each tribe except for the tribe of Levi, totalling 603, 550 (Num. 1:46). The purpose of the census was apparently to ascertain how many were able to go forth to war (1:3). The Levites were exempt from the census and the obligation of military service because of their special responsibilities to safeguard the ark of the covenant. They were, according to Rashi following the Midrash, like the king’s bodyguard, separate from the rest of the people.
Counting the people in a formal census was not a popular institution in the Biblical world. We see this most clearly in a fascinating incident from the life of King David, when he is impelled - apparently like Moses and Aaron - to take a census of his people. Despite the warning of his army commander, Joab, David insists that the census be taken, and the resulting numbers are even higher than in our Torah account: 800,000 potential soldiers in Israel, 500,000 in Judah (2 Sam. 24: 1-9).
At this point, however, David realizes that he has committed a grievous sin. A prophet named Gad gives him a choice of punishments: seven years of famine, three months of military defeat, or three days of pestilence. David makes the obvious choice - “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord . . . and let me not fall into the hands of men”. By the end of the three days, 70,000 had died of disease throughout the kingdom (2 Sam 24:10–18).
Why was the census in the Torah commanded by God, while the census under David deserving of punishment? The thirteenth-century commentator Moses ben Nahman (Ramban) discusses this question extensively in his comment on Numbers 1:3, concluding that the Torah census was necessary for military reasons, while David ordered the counting for his own sense of self-importance, and that he counted not just those from age 20 eligible for military service, but all those from age 13: hence the inflated results.
But whatever the reason, it seems clear that a census was not welcomed but feared by the people, who suspected that it would lead to greater efficiency in military conscription, forced labour, and taxation. Precise numbers and those who produced them in the Biblical world were therefore strongly resented. The legacy of this resentment is reflected in superstitious customs down through the ages, leading to the reluctance of some Jews to count other Jews directly, even for a minyan; instead they would say, “not-one, not-two, not-three….”
Today many of us in the Jewish world have a fixation with Jewish numbers, provided by sociologists, demographers, and statisticians of various kinds. These numbers are often disturbing, particularly when they pertain to the Diaspora. There are still fewer Jews in the world today than there were in August of 1939. The number of Jews in the UK has declined by 40% since 1950. The number in the United States is declining as a percentage of the total population. It would have diminished in absolute numbers were it not for waves of immigration of refugees following the Second World War, of Israeli “yordim”, and of Jews from the Former Soviet Union.
Except in small pockets of the Haredi community, most Diaspora Jewish communities are not reproducing at the replacement level of 2.1 children, on average, per couple. The average age of Jewish parents at the time of their first child has increased dramatically from early 20s to early 30s—meaning that in the course of a century, a full generation will be lost (3 generations of Jews rather than 4). So that even if every Jewish child receives a fine Jewish education, marries another Jew, and has Jewish children—no apostasy, no intermarriage, no total assimilation—the Diaspora Jewish population would still be decreasing. This year, it is projected that for the first time, more Jews will be born in Israel than in the entire Diaspora.
How troubled should we be by these demographic trends? Do they justify the conclusion reached by such Zionist thinkers as Hillel Halkin and A. B. Yehoshua that there is no hope for continuity of Jewish life in the Diaspora? Jewish historical experience does not support such negative conclusions. The Jewish population in the early first century was estimated by SW Baron as having been 10% of the population of the entire Roman Empire (6 out of 60 million); in 1650, the world population of Jews was probably little more than 1 million. Although there is often a critical mass below which survival may be difficult, Jewish life has often flourished in relatively small communities. Demographic trends are not destiny.
Despite the fixation with precise numbers in the first chapter of our parasha, we might emphasize more the language of the second verse:
שאו את ראש כל עדת בני ישראל, literally: “lift up the head of the entire community of the people of Israel.” Each Jewish individual is to be raised, elevated, exalted; no Jews is, as it were, to be left behind. The result is that the Jewish people as a whole will continue to thrive, no matter what the aggregate numbers.
