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    31 May PARSHAS BAMIDBAR: HOW PRECIOUS LIFE IS

    Posted at 21:57h in by
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    Parshas Bamidbar

    begins with a

    census of the Jewish

    people. In fact,

    rabbinic literature

    refers to the book of

    Bamidbar as the “Chumash of the

    counts” (Chomesh haPekudim). Even

    in the secular world, the fourth of the

    “Five Books of Moses” is referred to

    as the Book of Numbers. The Torah

    in this parsha goes through every

    single tribe, listing how many people

    (males above the age of 20) were in

    that tribe, and then at the end

    provides a final tabulation: “These

    were all the counted ones of the

    Children of Israel, according to their

    fathers’ house, from twenty years of

    age and up, everyone who goes out to

    the army in Israel: All their counted

    ones were 603,550.” [Bamidbar

    1:45-46].

    The Torah’s narration then moves

    onto the story of the “Flags”. There

    were four Camps, each with 3 tribes.

    The Torah lists which tribe was in

    each camp. For instance the Torah

    says [Bamidbar 2:3-4]: “Those who

    encamp to the front, at the east, shall

    be the division of the camp of Judah

    according to their armies – and the

    prince of the children of Judah is

    Nahshon son of Amminadav – its

    army and their counted ones are

    74,600.” So too, for each of the tribes

    the Torah tells us the prince of the

    tribe and the number of people in that

    tribe – even though the Torah just

    listed these exact numbers in the

    previous chapter describing the

    census! If this were not enough, at

    the conclusion of the description of

    the flag encampments the Torah once

    again gives us the sum total of

    all the camps: “These are the

    counts of the Children of Israel

    according to their fathers’

    house; all the counts of the

    camps according to their

    armies, 603,550.” [Bamidbar

    2:32]

    If any parsha in the Torah

    contains redundancies – this is

    it. We know the Torah is

    usually so stingy with its words.

    Normally we expound major laws

    from even an extra (letter) vov. The

    Medrash here comments on this: The

    redundant reference to the numbers

    of Tribes of Israel individually and

    the redundant reference to the

    population of the entire nation

    collectively is indicative of

    Hashem’s love for the Jewish people.

    We are so precious to Him that – as it

    were – He loves to count us

    repeatedly.

    We can appreciate this if we

    imagine a collector of rare coins.

    He has a special place where he

    keeps his coin collection and

    every so often, he takes them out

    and counts them repeatedly. This

    is his treasure. The Medrash says

    we are the treasure of the

    Almighty so He counts us

    repeatedly — by tribe, by grand

    total, and again by tribe and by

    grand total.

    The Ramban, however, gives a

    different explanation for the

    apparent redundancy. The

    Ramban notes that three weeks

    transpired from the time when

    they were originally counted

    until the day they actually set up

    the system of travelling with the

    flags. During those 21 days,

    miraculously, no one died from

    the entire nation. They had

    603,550 people at the start of the

    period and they had the exact

    same 603,550 people at the end

    of the period. According to

    actuarial tables, in 21 days, out

    of a population of 600,000+, it is

    inevitable that there will be deaths! I

    read a statistic recently that every

    single day there are 100 military

    funerals in the United States (of

    veterans of past wars). The Ramban

    claims that the reason the Torah

    repeated these numbers is to

    highlight the miracle that in 21 days

    nobody died.

    However, we can still ask as follows.

    The Torah is so stingy with its use of

    letters. Why is this miracle so

    important that it was worthy of

    expending all these pasukim [verses]

    to tell us about this “miracle”? Reb

    Leib Rotkin wrote an insight on this

    question that he said he heard in the

    Yeshiva in Kletsk. He writes that this

    miracle is so important because of a

    major principle of Judaism: Whoever

    preserves the life of a single Jew is

    considered as if he preserved the

    entire world (kol ha’mekayem nefesh

    achas m’yisrael k’ilu kiyem olam

    maleh). Life is so precious, that even

    saving one individual is like saving

    an entire world.

    The halacha is that we desecrate

    Shabbos to save a person’s life. We

    even desecrate Shabbos to give a

    person a couple of extra hours. The

    Torah lets us know how important

    Jewish life is by spending all these

    pasukim to tell us one thing: nobody

    died! Human life is so precious that

    this is a miracle that bears repeating

    repeatedly in an elaborate manner

    with redundant verbiage, as the

    Torah does in this parsha. Every life

    makes a difference. Every person

    makes a difference. Every day of

    living makes a difference.