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Drash for Shabbat Bemidbar By Vivian Binder - May 18, 2007 When I first volunteered to do tonight’s Drash, I had to first read the Torah portion, select the portions I felt were most important and according to Temple rules, count each word and number of minutes it would take to interpret it so not to exceed 350 words (that’s 42 words so far) which is fitting because today’s Torah portion or Bemidbar concerns itself with a lot of counting, selection and a census. When God spoke to Moses on the first day of the second month in the second year after the Exodus of the land of Egypt, Moses was instructed to take a census of the Israelite people selected by their ancestry. God wanted only males aged 20 years and up who were able to bear arms. God then gave Moses a list of men who would assist him. Sounds to me as though God had a plan and vision. All Moses had to do was carry out the orders. He did so without question. When all the heads of each ancestral tribe were selected, they were recorded in the wilderness of Sinai. They were recorded based on the number of descendants from each head of the ancestral tribes. Thousands of men were selected from twelve different tribes. The total of fighting men was 603,550. The only tribe that God specifically told Moses not to record was the Levites. They were to be put in charge of protecting the Tabernacle of the Pact. The Levites were recorded separately by first born males. So as you can see, proper counting and census was important in order to make sure the Israelites and Torah were protected. In conclusion, I wanted to take a few minutes to compare counting in modern day times with the counting of ancient Israel. Today’s top 10 counting list is: #10- how much extra time you allow after your alarm wakes you. #9- how long we sit in traffic going to work. #8- number of minutes you’re late for work. #7-how much time we have for dinner before we have to get to our child’s baseball game. #6- number of minutes you run over on your cell phone #5- how many gallons it takes to fill the gas tank #4- how many vacation days you have left #3- how many days to your next vacation #2- how many American Idol seasons you watched And #1 is for my daughter: how many days until summer vacation. Shabbat Shalom.
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