Who Counts?

Jewish tradition seems to be very ambivalent about counting. On the one hand, the Psalms teach us to “number our days, so that we may attain a heart of wisdom”. We are currently in a period where we count the number of days between Passover and Shavuot -- the “sefirat ha-omer”. And in this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar, Moses takes a census of the Jewish people. On the other hand, it is a Jewish custom that when a small number of people show up for a service, and we want to count them to see if we have a minyan, we don’t count them directly. Rather, we go “not one, not two, not three, etc.” Perhaps this is a superstition related to the story told in the Book of Samuel. In that book, King David is directed by G-d to take a census of the people. Something goes terribly wrong, and the result is a plague where, we are told, 70,000 Israelites die! Rabbi Eleazar of the Talmud concludes that whoever counts Israelites directly is violating a Torah commandment. The medieval commentator Rashi maintains that whoever counts Israelites individually triggers the evil eye”. Perhaps they have in mind another way of taking a census. In the Book of Exodus Moses counts the Israelites by having each male contribute a coin to a general fund. Moses then counts the coins. People are counted indirectly. Nobody dies. Everyone is safely counted. 

Counting people, even today, especially today, can be misleading. In the current conflict in Israel, we hear, and will  continue to hear, about  the disproportionate number of casualties on each side. The media, social and otherwise, will portray Israel as using her superior power to inflict disproportionate harm on the civilian population of Gaza . But numbers can be misleading. What you will not hear is that Hamas indiscriminately targets Israeli civilians. For them, each Israeli killed, be it adult or child, is a victory. Israel, on the other hand, goes out of her way to avoid killing civilians. Israel alerts residents to leave their homes before they bomb their buildings. Israeli bombing only targets the Hamas terrorists, their infrastructure and their bomb making facilities.   Not surprisingly the terrorists hide among Gazan civilians, and launch their missiles from apartment buildings and day care centers. Civilians are put in harm’s way by their own rulers. For Israel, each civilian in Gaza that is killed is a tragedy. 

There is another kind of counting that we will be hearing more about in the weeks and months ahead. A new Pew Research Institute study of American Jews counted 7.5 million American Jews -- 5.8 million adults and 1.8 million children. This represents 2.5% of the American population. Among other findings:

75% of Jews said there was more antisemitism in America now than there was 5 years ago.

We are wealthier and better educated than the American population as a whole. Over half of adults have a college or post graduate degree, compared to 30% of Americans overall. 

Intermarriage is common in the Jewish community. Nearly three-quarters of non-Orthodox Jews who married since 2010 wed non-Jews. But well over half of those couples are raising their children with a Jewish identity. 

76% of Jews believe remembering the Holocaust is essential to being Jewish. A similar number said the same of leading an ethical and moral life. But only 33% of those surveyed responded that being part of a Jewish community was essential to being Jewish. 

Counting can be enlightening or misleading. The Pew Research Study gives us a snapshot of today’s American Jewish community and can point to where American Jewry has been successful. The numbers can help Jewish institutions plan for the future if interpreted correctly. 

But numbers can be misleading as well. Although there are those who will tell us differently, simply counting the number of casualties inflicted by the combatants in a conflict tells us very little about the  motivations,  the historical context and the moral principles  of each side. In the coming days the world will undoubtedly focus on the mounting casualties in Gaza. The world will look at the numbers and see that far more Palestinians have died than Israelis. Many will use that number as the sole criterion as to who is the aggressor and who is the victim. 

The most important number is one. Every single innocent Palestinian who dies, every single innocent Israeli who dies, is a tragedy. As the rabbis teach us, no one person’s blood is redder than another.

Let us pray for a speedy end to this conflict. Let us pray for Israelis and Palestinians to find a way forward to a permanent peace. 

Our cantor will now lead us in our Prayer for Peace.

[photo credit: Manik Roy on unsplash.com]

Reflection on the Lag BaOmer Tragedy in Israel

 

Our Parasha for this week, Emor,  lists all  the festivals we are to observe throughout the year. The Torah first lists Shabbat, then the other festivals -- Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur,Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret. 

The Torah refers to these times as “Moadim”, the Hebrew word which we translate as “Festivals”. The root of the word “moadim” are the letters “yud” “ayin” “dalet” י-ע-ד which means “to appoint”. The “Moadim” are the “appointed times” for Jews to gather in worship. In Hebrew the three letter root “yud-ayin-dalet'' יעד can be used with reference to either a time,  a place, or the people who gather. Thus, an “edah” עדה, or “congregation” is “a group of people assembled together for an appointment -- that is, a special purpose”. The “ohel moed” אוהל מועד of the Torah is the tabernacle, the tent where Moses has his appointments with G-d. Shabbat and Festivals are also called “moadim מועדים because these are appointed times for the Jewish people to gather. In modern Hebrew a “clubhouse” is called a “moadon”, מועדון a place of gathering. 

In this section of the Torah we are also commanded to count forty nine days starting with the day after Passover. These are the days leading up to Shavuot.  As you know, this counting is referred to as “Sefirat Ha-Omer”. This period is also a time of semi-mourning. According to tradition, an entire generation of Rabbi Akiva’s students died in a pandemic during this time in the 2nd century of the common era. In memory of this, traditional Jews do not cut their hair once Passover starts, and do not attend events with live music or dancing. Nor do we  perform weddings during this time -- all signs of mourning. However, the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer -- Lag Ba-omer -- is a time of rejoicing. That was the day when the pandemic stopped. It is traditional to get a haircut on that day, perform weddings and engage in celebrations. In Israel people all over the country light bonfires and hundreds of thousands make a pilgrimage to Mount Meron in Israel to visit the tomb of the famous Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who, according to tradition, is the author of the Zohar, the basis of the Jewish mystical tradition called Kaballah. 

As you have by now likely heard, yesterday’s celebration of Lag Ba-omer in Israel turned into a horrific tragedy. Instead of our mourning turning into joy, our joy turned into mourning.  Last year, the celebration of Lag Ba-omer on Mt. Meron was cancelled due to the Coronavirus. This year, with the situation in Israel improving,  tens of thousands of Israelis traveled to Mount Meron finally free to celebrate as they had in the past. The government had deployed thousands of police to ensure safety. Yet, for some reason, still unclear, a panic broke out and in the ensuing stampede 48 people were killed and hundreds injured. It is already being called Israel’s worst peacetime disaster. This evening we mourn the dead and pray for the physical and psychological healing of those who were injured, their families and the entire community. 

As the tragedy in Israel shows us, it is not always going to be “smooth sailing” as we emerge from the Pandemic and try to resume our normal lives. We may experience setbacks, stumbling blocks, a bit of trouble, although heaven forbid, nothing of the magnitude that occurred in Israel. Things may not go as we hope. Perhaps we can learn something about resilience from the catastrophe that befell Rabbi Akiva’s students back in the  2nd century. With the death of so many so far back  there was a grave danger that the Torah would be forgotten among the people of Israel. Yet despite his advanced age at the time, Rabbi Akiva began to teach anew, though he would never again have the 24,000 students he had spent a lifetime cultivating. The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Akiva was able to teach just  five -- Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yosi, Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamuah -- but from these five Torah education was able to rebuild and  flourish once again in the Land of Israel.

As we emerge from this Pandemic may we too rebuild,  may we too reorganize, may we too reset  and once again worship together on the Sabbaths and the Moadim -- our appointed times.

Shabbat Shalom