Bamidbar -- 5774

Parashat Bamidbar, the opening portion of the Book of Numbers, recounts a survey of the Israelites:  “Take a census of the whole Israelite company by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head.  You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms” (1:2-3).

Numbers are generally very important for military and other purposes.  Through most of Jewish history, however, our numbers haven’t mattered.

Our numbers didn’t matter in Israel’s War of Independence, when the Jews of the nascent State beat the odds to secure its borders.  All throughout our history, we have been a comparatively small group of people making an exceptional impact on humanity.  The Jewish nation is great in spite of our numbers, not because of them.

Some like to tout the extraordinary high percentage of Jewish Nobel prize winners.  We look to the statistics as proof of our worth, even superiority.

The numbers may help us feel good, but they don’t actually matter.  The significance of the Jewish people does not reside in the force of our numbers, but rather the force of our ideals:  social justice, compassion, reverence, humility, community.

“Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).