6 | MARCH 5 • 2020 

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The U.S Census:

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A great American tradition 
and a great Jewish value.
I

t is 2020 and time for 
another U.S. Census, as 
proscribed in Article I of 
the Constitution. As Jews with 
a long tradition 
of valuing every 
soul, we share the 
national interest 
of our country in 
making sure that 
everyone living 
in America gets 
counted. 
 This includes those who do 
not have the right to vote— 
non-citizens, undocumented 
residents and minors. Making 
sure that everyone in our neigh-
borhoods, cities and states is 
noticed is at the core of what 

it means to be part of the 
American and Jewish commu-
nities.
Historically, the Census was 
a way of enabling everyone in 
this great land to be represented. 
As the Carnegie Foundation 
explains, the Census “differed 
sharply from the Colonial cen-
suses … [which] were tools for 
the powerful — control and tax 
the population, exploit natural 
resources, and so forth. The 
American census flipped this 
180-degrees, building on the 
Boston Tea Party cry: ‘
No taxa-
tion without representation.
’
 … 
for the Founders, the right to be 
represented was fundamental, 
even more fundamental than 

the right to vote… as the latter 
was restricted to adult white 
male property owners …
”
Even though in the Torah 
portion of Ki Tisa (Exodus, 
30:11-16) the half-shekel used to 
count the Children of Israel only 
included military-aged men, it 
did seed the empowering idea of 
an active census: that we could 
not leave it only up to God to 
count us — as happened in 
the past in the Torah. Instead, 

through this half-shekel, which 
symbolized a bit of effort, it was 
ensured that the people were 
noticed and counted. Nowadays, 
we can compare the half-shekel 
to the small amount of time 
needed to fill out the Census.
While the Census is import-
ant to gain population and 
demographic data, its sym-
bolism might be even more 
important because it shows how 
much of an impact we all make, 

Rabbi Asher 
Lopatin

editor’
s note

The Whole Shpiel
I

t’
s funny how our relation-
ships to the holidays change 
as we get older. 
Purim is a great time as 
a child because you get to 
dress up in a 
fun costume 
— be it Esther, 
Mordechai or 
your leftover 
Incredible 
Hulk suit from 
Halloween (look, 
understandable, you want to 
get more use out of it). You 
get to yell and stamp your feet 
and make lots of noise in syn-
agogue, of all places. And you 
get to make and eat delicious 
hamentashen, pinching the 
dough at the three corners after 
dolloping way too much filling 

in the middle and watching it 
sploosh over the side. 
When it comes to hamentash-
en, if you’
re like I was, you’
re 
probably avoiding the suspi-
cious-looking apricot flavor, 
with its unnerving yellow-ish 
hue, and making a beeline 
straight for the much safer red 
filling (everyone knows red 
fruits are safer). To the truly 
fortunate go the coveted choc-
olate-chip. But there are never 
enough of those.
Still, I’
m now learning Purim 
might be an even better time 
when you’
re an adult. The 
Talmud commands us to treat 
the holiday as yemei mishteh 
v’
simchah (days of drinking and 
rejoicing), which has a certain 
enticing ambiguity to it. And 

over the centuries, the more 
party-hearty rabbis have given 
this a generous interpretation. 
As the saying goes, many Jews 
drink so much on Purim they 
can no longer tell the difference 
between “Blessed be Mordechai” 
and “Cursed be Haman.
”
I can’
t say I’
ve ever gone 
quite so overboard in my own 
Megillah readings. But I remem-
ber hearing this particular part 
of the theology for the first time 
shortly after college and realiz-
ing there was a whole world of 
Judaism out there that was, shall 
we say, adults-only. In my 20s, 
at all-night Purim parties put 
on by a youth-skewing Chicago 
congregation, I watched my 
fellow millennials act out bawdy 
scenes in that year’
s shpiel and 

then gorge themselves on kosher 
food trucks that had been rented 
just for the occasion. The wine 
and themed cocktails flowed 
freely. It was the future of the 
Jews.
If you’
re a parent of a young 
one, I hope this week’
s Jewish 
News Purim stories on pages 
32-35 can rekindle some of 
those memories of wilder times 
as you figure out what sort of 
memories of this day you want 
to leave your own offspring 
with. Don’
t forget to send 
photos of your costumes to us 
via the submission form on 
TheJewishNews.com, so we can 
print them in a future issue. 
Chag Sameach, and please 
remember to Megillah respon-
sibly. 

Andrew Lapin

continued on page 10