Mina's Musings: Bamidbar 2015

This morning as we turn to parashat Bamidbar we find ourselves faced with one of the many censuses that we find in the Torah.  Indeed, it is because of this census that in English this book of the Torah is called Numbers.  In thinking about the many censuses in the Torah, it is natural to wonder why we have so many of them.  According to the rabbis, the point of each of the censuses is to show that God loves each Jew so much that they were to be counted individually.  The counting is a sign of the love.  The same idea holds true for this time of year, as we have slowly counted up to the final day of the omer and begin Shavuot this evening.  Each and every day on the journey has been counted not only because it is one day closer to Shavuot, but because each day holds its own opportunities for growth, doing mitzvoth, and striving to connect to God.

Seeing how Torah is so concerned with numbers – multiple censuses of the Israelites, counting out specific items for the Tabernacle, numbers of animals for sacrifices, and more, the ancient rabbis too paid very close attention to numbers.  Last week I spoke about Rashi’s concern when the numbers were inconsistent in the portion.  But their interest in numbers went beyond that.  Indeed, they created practically an entire system of deriving meaning from the Torah based on numbers, or at least number play.  This number play, or gematria, is based on the fact that every Hebrew letter also has a numerical value.  Variations of gematria include counting the number of mitzvoth in the Torah, positive and negative, counting the words in the various verses and books of the Torah, or of the entire Torah itself in a quest for meaning.  In this vein the mystical work the Zohar says that the Torah has 600,000 letters, corresponding to the 600,000 Israelites enumerated in the census.  Because of this idea another idea emerged – That every Jew has his/her “own” letter in the Torah.  The singer Sam Glaser has a beautiful song about this – “I just want to find my letter in the Torah, the one that’s written just for me.”  In any case, the “proof” for this idea is an acronym using the letters of the word Yisrael – yesh shishim riv’vot otiot l’Torah – there are 60 ten thousands of letters in the Torah.  However, as once was pointed out in a D’var Torah by Rabbi S. Weiss of Raanana, Israel, there aren’t anywhere near 600,000 letters in the Torah.  Rather, there are exactly 304,805 letters.  How then do we account for this major discrepancy?

Rabbi Weiss explained that according to Ramban, the Torah was created as “black fire upon white fire.”  The letters are the black fire while the white fire consists of the blank spaces between the words and the chapters.  The white spaces, the blank spots, in other words also have meaning.  When you total up the black and white spaces it equals 600,000.

A second explanation of how the Zohar came to the conclusion that there are 600,000 letters in the Torah was also offered by Rabbi Weiss.  He pointed out what anyone who has ever studied Hebrew knows without knowing – that certain letters of the Hebrew alphabet – and therefore of the Torah – are composites, combinations of more than one letter.  An Alef, for example, is made up of a vav and two yuds; a heh is a raysh and a yud; a koof is a raysh and a vav, and so on.  If each letter represents a person and some letters are made up of two or three other letters, when you put them all together you reach the magical number of 600,000 letters and people.

Concerning these explanations Rabbi Weiss wrote the following:  “These two ideas have a deep message.  First, not all people are alike.  Some are outspoken, defined, visible and prominent, like the black fire.  Others are quiet, reserved, modest, like the white fire.  We need all of them to make a whole People – or to make a kosher Torah.  Furthermore, not every letter stands alone; some need “help” from a fellow letter to be complete.  The heh, for instance, needs the tall vav and the small yud.  Likewise, we Jews need each other to make a People, to make a Torah.  If even one letter is missing, if even one Jew is missing – or incomplete – the Torah-Israel is in need of tikkun or repair.”

Many of us have heard the expression kol Yisrael arayveen zeh ba’zeh, all of Israel is mixed up, responsible for one another.  This responsibility goes back to the very basics – our obligation to observe the 613 commandments.  No single Jew can actually perform the 613 commandments by his/herself since, aside from the ones concerning sacrifice that none of us can do, some are specific to men, some are for women, some are for women who’ve given birth, some are for Kohanim, some are for Levi’im, etc.  Since no one Jew can perform the 613 commandments we literally need one another, working together in community to do all that God expects of us.  That is what is meant when we say that we are responsible for one another.  That is why in Pirkay Avot Hillel said:  Al teefros meen ha’tzeeboor, usually translated as “don’t separate yourself from the community.”  Another meaning of the word teefros, though is “aloof.”  This would yield “don’t keep yourself aloof from the community,” meaning don’t see yourself as better than, superior to your community.  Your community helps you without you even knowing it.

For me, personally, it is very comforting knowing that in a very real sense my Jewish life and destiny is linked to the Jewish life and destiny of others.  It helps me to feel part of something bigger than myself, to know that if I cannot do it all, there will be someone there to help me.

That is what it is supposed to mean not only to be a Jew in general, but in particular, to be a Jew who is a member of a synagogue.  It is supposed to mean that you have a community, a family to a certain extent that is always there for you, in good times and bad, for better or worse.

Over the past couple of weeks I have had the privilege of seeing this community in action, helping a young widow and her children get through a devastating loss, comforting adult members whose parents died after long lives, celebrating B’nai Mitzvah together, planning weddings, and more.  I have seen congregants jump into action when a fellow congregant is in need, and over the past week, as the congregation itself was in need of additional volunteers to serve on the board.  We all have our place.  We are all needed, wanted.  Black and white fire together, interconnected letters, all working together to sustain a community that in turn sustains us.

Shabbat Shalom.