February 18, 2011- Ki Sisa

I realized something else I have in common with my kids. We both think that the lady who sings 1234 really wrote the song about penguins at the door and chickens just back from the shore and an obsession with counting. Little did we know that a woman dubbed feist is actually working towards a different career. Personally, I like what she did here better.

She loves counting. So does Hashem. But we do it sans chickens and monsters and ceilings of 4. The Torah portion this week begins with counting. God wants Moses to count the Jewish people. And the portion is named after the first telling words - Ki Sisa - which means when you raise up the Jewish people (it's translated as 'when you take a census', but the root of the word means to raise). What does counting have to do with raising up?

Sesame Street: Feist sings 1,2,3,4

As a side note, the Torah clearly teaches us not to count their heads, but rather have everyone give a half a shekel, and count them instead. We don't like to put a fixed number on counting people. It's an evil eye thing that the little red bracelet won't dispel. But what is even more interesting is that the Torah teaches that Moses couldn't figure out what the shekel was supposed to look like, so God showed him a coin of fire - matbei'ah shel aish. What didn't Moses know? What was he bothered by? and how was this the answer.

The word for counting in Hebrew is 'lispor' from the root of the same word 'sipour' meaning story and the word 'sefer' meaning book. When Jews count, we're not counting for quantity alone, but rather we're mostly counting for quality. Quality of Oneness. A story is a series of different events that are woven together to teach a single theme or to accomplish a single entity called 'the story'. The 'sefer' is the unification of those events under one cover. The same root which means 'to count' is of a similar vein. We count not for the amount, but to create a greater whole. Moses' question was really how can we 'raise up' the Jewish people and count them in a way
which unifies and doesn't disperse. More deeply, as a leader, he wanted to understand how to unify a people. So God showed him a coin of fire. Fire is the great consumer. Everything that enters it, becomes it. It reduces the individual components of the thing to energy, thus destroying the elements which distinguish it from something else - in size, texture, color, dimension, space and time - and turning it into pure energy - its spiritual component - so that it can 'serve' the greater One. Fire is the great equalizer. God was showing Moses the power of the spiritual oneness already latent in each and every Jew and the opportunity to bring that out. To the degree to which the Jewish people will know their spiritual truth, to the degree to which they will be willing to sacrifice the superficial, physical components of their being, will be the very recipe for Oneness - the ultimate goal for the nation of Israel.

This what it means to be 'counted' among the Jewish people - a feat that spans time and space. This is the Jewish 'story' and our Torah is the sefer in which we strive to be written.

Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Lynn