Ethan Goldstein

This week, we begin Bamidbar, the fourth book of the Torah.

As is the case with all books in the Torah, the first parasha of a book shares its title with that book’s title. Bamidbar begins with God telling Moses to conduct a census of the Israelites, who, at this point in their journey, had been wandering for two years and two months since their escape from the Land of Egypt. Representatives of each tribe were to calculate the number of men in their respective tribe, over the age of twenty who were able to bear arms. The census, at its most basic level, was a preliminary measure for organizing a standing army to protect the Israelites during the military campaigns that lay ahead of them. Of course, commentators on the Torah argue that this was neither the sole purpose nor the sole meaning of the census at this point in the Israelites’ journey to Eretz Israel.

There is one special instruction in carrying out the census that I want to focus on. It's in the second passuk. It reads:

שְׂא֗וּ אֶת־רֹאשׁ֙ כָּל־עֲדַ֣ת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֑ם בְּמִסְפַּ֣ר שֵׁמֹ֔ות כָּל־זָכָ֖ר לְגֻלְגְּלֹתָֽם׃

“Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one."

It states that the Israelites are to be counted by their names. This passuk specifies the counting of names, which is characteristically different from merely counting heads. This method of counting seems pertinent to the reality that the newly-freed Israelites were living.

For the Israelites in the Land of Egypt, their names were used to summon them by their task masters. Hearing our name grabs our attention instantly, and directs it towards whoever it is that has summoned us. Think about how we all have learned to relate to our own name, whether given at birth, or chosen later on. When our names are called, or when we think our names are called, we respond with a turn of the head, not because we choose to respond,

but because we are trained in such a way. This is how I imagine the Israelites relating to names. They were words of summoning, tools of those that enslaved them. A name has undeniable power. It has the capacity to create, and to destroy.

For the Israelites, who embarked on a collective search for liberation in Eretz Yisrael, as well as a soul search, their names took on new meaning. They wandered through the Sinai as free people, and this newly-obtained freedom brought with it new questions. Who were the Israelites? Who and what would they become? Perhaps this census was a moment of empowerment for the Israelites. As they recorded their names, they effectively declared themselves as people who endured a particular experience, and they reminded themselves of their ability to answer the questions I posed above.

The census did not just carry meaning for the men above twenty who were able to bare arms, but for everyone who remembered the bitterness of their enslavement, and the wave of life that entered every Israelite who freed herself and who was freed.

This past weekend at Ma’apilimot Seminar, Kvutzat 62 decided to name itself and the process that it is choosing to continue in Shlav Bet. I won’t say what our name is in this text, since we unanimously decided to wait to announce our new name until the next HDNA census. We hope to find meaning in a name that gives voice to our decision to continue on a path of building towards liberation.

This specific reading of the parasha reveals some undertones of self-determination, an idea that we hold closely as Zionist youth. We in the tnu’a raise up moments in our history of Jews who have shaped their own realities, and resisted the forces that tried to shape them. We find inspiration in these moments, as we embark upon our task to do the same as leaders in the tnu’a.