Rabbi 360

Torah this week turns to a census. As we begin the new book of Numbers in our annual Torah reading cycle, the Israelites are preparing to restart their journey towards the promised land having spent time encamped at Mount Sinai, receiving the Torah, building the Tabernacle, and installing the priesthood. With the tablets in hand and the other institutional trappings of the community in place, the Israelites are ready to move out.

First, however, God instructs Moses to take a census, to count the entire population. This serves several functions: to muster an army, to identify the priesthood and their Levitical assistants, and to assign locations for encampments and marching.

But not everyone is counted. For the tribes, only males over the age of 20 are included. For the Levites, who are not included with the rest of the tribes because of their special status attending to the Tabernacle, only the males ages one month and up are included. Women, and for the most part, children are excluded.

This distinction between men and women is also reflected in the parasha we read last week:

God spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When anyone explicitly vows to God the equivalent for a human being, the following scale shall apply: If it is a male from twenty to sixty years of age, the equivalent is fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary weight; if it is a female, the equivalent is thirty shekels. If the age is from five years to twenty years, the equivalent is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. If the age is from one month to five years, the equivalent for a male is five shekels of silver, and the equivalent for a female is three shekels of silver. If the age is sixty years or over, the equivalent is fifteen shekels in the case of a male and ten shekels for a female. (Leviticus 27:2-7)

Both this text and the census are problematic for us because of the different values placed on individual lives based on various characteristics. Whether by gender or age, we should be disturbed by these distinctions. And even if we look past those specific markers to what they represent—who can serve in a military, whose work is seen as more valuable—we still have the same problems.

For while we may have different skills, abilities, talents, and roles to play and each one should be valued in its uniqueness, we also affirm the general principle that everyone is valued, every life is equal.

Of course, we do see the distinctions continue to play out in our current reality. Women’s work is systematically undervalued. Recent proposed tax policy would cut services and support to the poorer among us in favor of the rich. Trans folks’ very identity is threatened. And in war lives are devalued in order to carry out kidnappings or killings.

So let these texts be a challenge to us. Rather than reading this portion as a technocratic assessment of the size and skills of a population, let it be a reminder that we are more than a number on a spreadsheet. Indeed, according to Jewish tradition it is forbidden to count people—when we have to do so in order to make a minyan (the quorum of 10 needed for prayer) for example, we either say “not 1, not 2” or use a verse from Torah or the siddur with 10 words.

When we reduce people to numbers, that is when we reduce their humanity, and we are stuck in the same place. When we remember that whenever we count people—whether its hostages, casualties, Medicaid recipients, cancer patients, trans folks, etc.—there are real, whole, complicated, worthy people behind the numbers, then we can move forward together in the journey.