Bamidbar: Posture and Counting

(1) Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to be involved with words of Torah.

(7) "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" (Numbers 1:1). Why the Sinai Wilderness? From here the sages taught that the Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness. How do we know it was given through fire? From Exodus 19:18: "And Mount Sinai was all in smoke as God had come down upon it in fire." How do we know it was given through water? As it says in Judges 5:4, "The heavens dripped and the clouds dripped water [at Sinai]." How do we know it was given through wilderness? [As it says above,] "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness." And why was the Torah given through these three things? Just as [fire, water, and wilderness] are free to all the inhabitants of the world, so too are the words of Torah free to them, as it says in Isaiah 55:1, "Oh, all who are thirsty, come for water... even if you have no money." Another explanation: "And God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Wilderness" — Anyone who does not make themselves ownerless like the wilderness cannot acquire the wisdom and the Torah. Therefore it says, "the Sinai Wilderness."

(1) שאו את ראש כל עדת בני ישראל, “take a census of the entire assembly of the Jewish people, etc.” The Jewish people do not experience an ascent of a spiritual kind unless they perform the laws of the Torah. When the counting of the Jewish people is described here by the word שאו instead of say, פקדו, this indicates that being counted at the command of G’d is a spiritual ascent. The word שאו combines within it two meanings, one the direct opposite of the other. It may mean that one’s head is being elevated in the sense of someone being promoted; on the other hand, the same word is also employed as depicting that someone is being beheaded, such as in the case of the chief baker of Pharaoh’s court whose execution Joseph foretold in Genesis 40,19.
We find a similar approach in Tanchuma Bamidbar 8 where the author paraphrases our verse as G’d saying: “I have not been as fond of any nation as I am of you, therefore I have elevated you to be the head just as I am the ‘head’ of all phenomena in this world.” We know the latter from Chronicles I 19,11: “Yours, Lord, are greatness, might, splendour, triumph, and majesty-yes all that is in heaven and earth; to You, Lord, belong kingship and preeminence over all.” G’d says that because of your relationship to Me, I have made you vis-a-vis the nations something similar to My position vis-a-vis all the creatures in the universe.” This is what the psalmist spoke about in Psalms 148,15: וירם קרן לעמו, “He has exalted the horn of His people.” When Moses speaks of G’d making the Jewish people supreme over all the nations of the earth, he has the same thought in mind.
When the meaning of the word שאו is “to decapitate,” this is what we read in Genesis 40,19. The Torah deliberately uses a word which may have either of these two meanings in order to warn the people that if they deserve it the census will be beneficial for them; if not, it may have fatal consequences.

(1) Ad-nai spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting on the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt, saying: raise the head of the whole Israelite community. "Raise" is an expression of elevation - that is, through the counting every individual will feel heightened and supported, as we read (Hosea 2:1) 'and the number of the children of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which will not be measured, and will not be counted." And this verse seems to contradict itself (see Bavli Yoma 22b) because the beginning says "And the number of the children of Israel will be" suggesting that it is possble to count them, and after that it says "Which cannot be measured etc". In fact, all of Israel is without number, and what is written "the number will be" is said over every single specific soul of Israel, that every single one will be counted, that is, something of consequence in the counting, and important in the eyes of the Holy One of Blessing, as it is written "Ad-nai will count in the register of peoples [that each was born there.]" (Psalms 87:6) "And to Zion it says: every person was born in her" (Psalms 87:5) - this is that God does providence also with the other peoples, just not specifically on every single soul, but on all as a whole. "And to Zion it says 'every person was born in her' - this means that the Holy One is interested in every single soul. And this is the explanation for "and the number will be" that every single person is needed, since through the community of Israel the greatnesses of the Holy One are made known, and if one is missing then the demeanor is missing. This is similar to when they draw the face of the king in thousands of tablets, and if one is missing - something of the face of the king is missing. And at the moment that one is counted in Israel he is the greatest of all Israel, since all Israel is a piece of the Holy One of Blessing, as it is written "A piece of Ad-nai is His people" (Deuteronomy 32:9) and every single one holds within oneself one of the aspects of the Holy One of Blessing, and at the moment s/he is counted then the Holy One was in that aspect that s/he is held by and therefore s/he is the greatest - and through this every single person of Israel is heightened/elevated.