This Shabbat we begin reading the fourth book of the Torah. In Hebrew it is called Sefer Bamidbar, the Book of the Wilderness, from the first verse which, says “Adonai spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai.” In the Christian tradition it is called The Book of Numbers because it begins with God commanding Moses to take a census of all men suitable for military service. Counting people is problematic in Judaism. Here it is commanded by God to provide to meet the essential need of mutual defense and so is acceptable. On the other hand in 2 Samuel 24, King David takes a census which leads to a plague that kills 70,000. This is taken even farther in some Jewish communities where people are never counted, even for a minyan; rather they are “not counted,” as in “not one, not two, not three…” or are counted using ten words from a verse in sacred text. Another expression of this point of view is, “Things are counted but never people.” In other words, a census denies our unique individuality and our humanity, by placing us in an undifferentiated mass. But perhaps there is a way to resolve this seeming contradiction. To make a community function, we each need “to stand up and be counted.” That is, we each need to contribute our own special gifts and unique talents to build and sustain our congregation. We don’t need to count each other; we need to count on one another to make community

I write this on Wednesday evening, erev Tisha b’Av. The 9 th of Av is the most somber date in the Jewish calendar when, according to our tradition, the First and Second Temples were destroyed and the Jewish community of Spain was expelled in 1492, among other national tragedies. It is a day of mourning, complete fasting as on Yom Kippur, of reading the Book of Lamentations, and quiet, solemn reflection. It marks the greatest estrangement and distance from God.

Our sages taught that the Temple was not destroyed because the Babylonians and later the Romans were the greatest empires of their time and thus defeated the small Jewish nation. Nor did they teach that the Temple’s destruction was caused by God’a abandonment of the Jewish people.

Rather, they looked inward and suggest that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam boundless hatred of Jew against Jew. The Shabbat that immediately follows Tisha b’Av is called Shabbat Nechamu (the Sabbath of Consolation) and marks the beginning of the seven weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah.

May we use this time to reflect on ways we can counteract sinat chinam by strengthening the bonds between one another, in our families, our congregation, our broader Jewish community and our nation.

~Rabbi Dean