Taste of Torah
26 Iyar 5786 / May 14, 2026

Parashat B’midbar
We Count
​Torah Portion: Numbers 1:1-4:20
Haftarah Portion: I Samuel 20:18-42 [i]

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We begin this week the book of Numbers, called in Hebrew Sefer B’midbar, the “Book in the Wilderness” (or “Book in the Desert”). The book and our parashah begin with an instruction from God to Moses to count the community.

On the first day of the second month, in the second year after the exodus from the land of Egypt, Adonai spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, saying: Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms. (Numbers 1:1-3)

We learn several things from these short verses. To begin, what at first sounds like a comprehensive tally turns out to be limited and pointed: only men eligible for military service. But this does not mean they are the only members of the community who matter; perhaps it means instead that this subset of the Israelites are being numbered because of the relevant timing of this particular census.

Indeed, the timing seems to be significant, coming at the start of the book characterized by the Israelites’ forty years of wandering in the desert. As Ilana Kaufman, CEO of the Jews of Color Initiative, notes: “Through the process of being counted, these men knew their role, that they were part of a family and tribe, of an army, of a people. … by counting and sorting, Moses offers an important experience of identity establishment and personal validation during a time of literal and metaphoric uncertainty.”[ii] This focused census perhaps gives the entire community, and especially these men, more of a sense of security.

Meaningful, too, is the setting in which God chooses to deliver this edict to Moses: the Tent of Meeting within the portable desert sanctuary that serves as the earthly dwelling for God’s presence, in which God is said to have spoken to Moses “face to face, as one person speaks to another” (Exodus 33:11). The intimate environment seems to befit this particular instruction. Indeed, many scholars argue that God’s care for the people motivates the census.

The medieval French commentator Rashi simply claims that the count is “because they were dear to [God].”[iii] A rabbinic midrash, or storytelling tradition, expands on this idea by connecting the count to other places in the Hebrew Bible in which God’s regard for the Israelites is made clear, citing many verses from the prophetic books. But most tellingly, the midrash correlates verses from Song of Songs, the intense biblical love poem between a woman and her lover. The midrash explains: “‘All of you is fair, my love, and there is no blemish in you’ (Song of Songs 4:7). That is why you shall be particular about their number.”[iv] God counts us, the rabbis explain, because we are loved.

Kaufman expounds on this theme, building on the idea that the English idiom of “take a census” is literally in Hebrew, “lift up the head” (s’u et-rosh, Numbers 1:2). She reimagines God’s instructions to Moses:

“[B]egin your counting by letting each child of Israel know they are individually seen, acknowledged, and that they matter.” Each individual is unique; the instruction to ‘lift the heads of all’ is an invitation to know each name, each family, each Israelite. Therein, God gives the counters the essential tool to ensure each person who is counted knows they matter and to whom they matter. By providing role and context as well as identity, validation, and affirmation, counting is a holy practice that infuses in others a sense of deep value.[v]

This Shabbat, as we make our way through several chapters of names and numbers, let’s not lose sight of the moment as evidence of God’s extraordinary interest in us as individuals and as members of our community. May we move through this week more secure in our place in the world as a result of this devotion.

Shabbat Shalom!
Salem Pearce
Director of Spirituality

[i] Because this Shabbat is immediately followed by Rosh Chodesh, the first of a new month (Rosh Chodesh Sivan), there is a special haftarah, or prophetic reading, that begins with the words: “Tomorrow is the new moon…”
[ii] Ilana Kaufman, “Counting Justly: Lifting Up Every Head,” The Social Justice Torah Commentary, ed. Rabbi Barry H. Block (New York: CCAR Press, 2021), cited at https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/485281.110?lang=bi.
[iii] Rashi on Numbers 1:1.
[iv] B’midbar Rabbah 4:2.
[v] Kaufman, cited at https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/485281.110?lang=bi.

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