Numbers & Names
Thoughts on Parashat VaEra 2020
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In the moments leading up to Moshe and Aharon’s
confrontation with Pharaoh, the Torah took a brief “pause in action” for a
background check:
Amram
took to his wife his father’s sister Yokheved, and she bore him Aharon and
Moshe… (Shemot
6:20)
Taken on its own,
the lineage is simple and straightforward. Contrasting this detailed
presentation to its initial rendition, however, reveals something deeper:
A
man of the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. (Shemot 2:1)
There is a
deliberate shift from anonymity – “a man of the house of Levi and a Levite
woman,” to a clear mention of names – “Amram, Yokheved, Aharon and Moshe.”
Interestingly, Sefer Shemot – “The Book of Names” inversely began with
“all the names who came to Egypt,” but then summarized the list with the nameless
number of “seventy souls” (1:1-4). And this contrast between “names” and
“numbers” was perhaps most pronounced as Am Yisrael began their march in
the wilderness, in Sefer Bemidbar, or Sefer HaPikudim – “The Book
of Numbers,” and God commanded that Moshe lead a census “by the number of
the names” (Bemidbar l1:2). What message underlies this consistent contrast
between anonymous numbers and pronounced names in the makeup of Am Yisrael?
Near the turn of
the 21st century, columnist David Brooks penned a thoughtful article
regarding the general culture surrounding the elite young men and women of the
day. He referred to them as “organization kids,” bemoaning their unflinching
acceptance of the social order of society. Whereas the ambitious young men and women
of the latter half of the 20th Century “knew they were supposed to
rebel against authority, reject old certainties, and liberate themselves from
hidebound customs and prejudices,” the youth of today are “cooperative team
players,” they “accept authority” and are “rule followers.” While each of these
traits is, of course, positive in its own right, understanding the way to
success as the absolute adherence to these trends has suspended a moral
development that is oftentimes born out of a fight for our individual ideals.
Brooks wrote that today, sadly, “Instead of virtue we talk about
accomplishment.”[1]
It remains a
challenge, however, to tow the line between a genuine expression of our own
thoughts and beliefs – establishing our name, while at once belonging to
a collective that is far greater than ourselves – being a part of the count.
God introduced the process toward redemption from Egypt to Moshe, Aharon and
all of Am Yisrael with that very challenge.
“True belonging is
the spiritual practice of believing in and belong to yourself so deeply that
you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in
both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness,” Brené
Brown wrote, adding, “True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are;
it requires you to be who you are.”[2]
R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik z”l similarly reflected upon the dichotomy
between the individual and community in the realm of kedushah:
“If the community were the only source of sanctity, then the individual would
be deprived of his creative role, his individual initiative, his originality
and uniqueness. The outstanding person would not be able to develop into a
great leader.” Individual kedushah experiences, in contrast, are
incommensurate with each other, they are “an expression of one’s greatness, and
not all people are alike as far as greatness is concerned.”[3]
An ancient
kabbalstic tradition maintains that there are “six hundred thousand aspects and
meanings in the Torah” – a number corresponding to the men who left Egypt –
“the primary souls of Israel.” R. Yisshak Luria, the Ari z”l,
added that in the messianic age every member of Am Yisrael will read the
Torah in accordance with “the meaning peculiar to his root.”[4]
Understood on its most simple (and incorrect) level, this concept refers to a
religious anarchy. After all, if every person holds an individual key to
interpret the Torah, then we are each governed only by the strength of absolute
subjectivity. Properly understood, however, this tradition teaches that
although there is an objectively binding extrinsic dimension to the
Torah, the internal realm is left to the individual. “Some lives have an
emotional emphasis; others, an intellectual; for some the way of joy is
natural; for others, existence is full of effort and struggle,” R. Adin
Steinsaltz wrote, “each soul understands and does things in a way not suitable
for another soul.”[5]
The passages regarding
the beginning of Am Yisrael transition from explicit names to
anonymity and numbers – and then back again. The Torah subtly taught that
membership to Am Yisrael entails a dual acceptance: the absolute
strictures of this “nation of numbers” – a scrupulous adherence to Torah and missvot,
and a genuine expression of our “personal names” – a unique connection to
God reflective of our individual souls.
[1] David Brooks, “The
Organization Kid,” The Atlantic, Apr. 2001, pg. 40-54.
[2] Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for
Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (New York, NY, 2017), pg. 40.
[3] R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Vision
and Leadership: Reflections on Joseph and Moses (Jersey City, NJ, 2013),
pg. 195-6.
[4] R. Yisshak Luria, Sefer
HaKavanot, 53b. Cited and developed in Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah
and its Symbolism (New York, NY, 1996), pg. 12 and 65.
[5] R. Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz,
The Thirteen Petalled Rose: A Discourse on the Essence of Jewish Existence
& Belief (New Milford, CT, 1996), pg. 56.