MAY 21 • 2020 | 31

Spirit
torah portion

T

his week’
s portion is 
the first in the Book of 
Numbers, known also as 
Bamidbar/In the Wilderness. 
The English name is drawn 
from the census of the Israelites 
that takes place in the desert. . 
Why, at the beginning of a 
book chronicling the dramatic 
ups and downs of a peo-
ple in formation, are we 
subjected to a tedious 
and technical census?
Today, we are indeed 
in the wilderness: 
The coronavirus has 
catapulted us into 
uncharted territory. 
Like the Israelites, we 
find ourselves counting. 
Counting days of iso-
lation. Counting 6 feet 
apart. Counting risk 
factors. Counting pre-
cious dollars lost from 
retirement funds. That’
s 
just on the personal 
level; what about the 
various collectives of which we 
are a part? Our organizations 
are counting money in reserve; 
our communities are counting 
lives lost; our society is counting 
months until a vaccine. 
On a deeper level, another 
sort of counting is going on. 
The shutdown has forced soci-
ety to ask: Who counts? Who 
is disposable? Whose lives are 
worthy of protection? We’
ve 
witnessed a wave of strikes from 
those deemed “essential work-
ers;” from Instacart to Amazon, 
workers are trying desperately 
to bring attention to lack of 
adequate pay and protection. 
The pandemic has laid bare the 
brutal hierarchy of human life 
our society is built on.
Perhaps the biblical census 
serves to undermine the logic of 
slavery in addition to the inhu-
manity of our own social order. 
 Rabbi Shai Held writes: “R. 
Isaac Arama (1420-1494) asks 
why all the seemingly dull 
details of the census are nec-

essary. Did God not know the 
number of Israelites encamped 
in the desert? Taking account 
of them one by one, R. Arama 
argues, serves to teach that 
each one has individual worth, 
and is not just a member of the 
collective. ‘
They were all equal 
in stature,
’
 Arama writes, ‘
and 
yet the stature of each one was 
different”’
 (Akeidat Yitzhak, 
Bamidbar, 72). 
His commentary pushes 
us to consider how our 
various choices reflect an 
underlying assessment 
of a person’
s worth. For 
those of us with economic 
privilege, will we go back 
to ignoring and exploiting 
those who pick and pack-
age and deliver our food? 
Or will we take this oppor-
tunity for cheshbon nefesh
(soul accounting) and 
reevaluate our concep-
tions of whose labor and 
lives are valuable? And 
will we translate that new 
understanding into action, like 
joining Detroit Jews for Justice’
s 
long-standing involvement in 
the effort to guarantee paid sick 
time for all workers?
Throughout Passover, com-
munities gathered online for 
Hallel, the festival service of 
praise. The morning I led the 
prayers, I was stopped in my 
tracks when I came across the 
verse from Psalm 118: “The 
stone that the builders rejected 
has become the chief corner-
stone.
” A beautiful thought that 
always seemed aspirational at 
best suddenly felt within reach.
Perhaps we can emerge from 
this pandemic with transformed 
consciousness and accompa-
nying practice, that affirm the 
inherent dignity and holiness 
of every human being. Ken yehi 
ratzon, may it be so. 

Ariana Alpert is the director of Detroit 
Jews for Justice and the rabbi of 
Congregation T’
chiyah in Oak Park.

Parshat 

Bamidbar: 

Numbers

1:1-4:20;

I Samuel

20:18-42. 

(Shabbat 

Machar 

Chodesh)

Rabbi Alana 
Alpert

Noting Individual Worth

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