Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Consecration of Confirmands
Shabbat B'midbar
May 21, 2004
When People Count
This is a very special Shabbat for me. I created this pre-confirmation Service of Consecration, because I believe in spiritual preparation for a major life-cycle moment. This coming Tuesday night, 18 young people will confirm and be confirmed. It's my challenge to summarize in some way what their Jewish educational experience has taught these students who have been with us for 11 or more years. And this is the first time in three years that the quirks of our calendar permitted this Service of Consecration. So I have a pent-up reserve of what I would like to share with our students, their families and our congregation prior to Shavuot Eve and Sinai.
Our lextionary, our cycle of Torah readings, has inspired me. As you heard, we begin in synagogues throughout the world, studying B'midbar - the fourth of the five Books of Moses, the Book of Numbers. Let this week's sedra speak the following six lessons to the Confirmation Class of 5764.
(1) Lesson one. B'midbar means "in the wilderness." The desert wilderness was the most miserable of all environments. What an unlikely place to meet God. Why in all the world was the Torah given "in the wilderness"? In order to remind us that there is no condition, no circumstance, in which people cannot hear the voice of God - if they are determined to hear it. How often do we quickly and glibly defend our spiritual obtuseness by pointing to unfavorable conditions and situations: "Oh, we are not likely to communicate with God here." Yet out of the desert, with all of its dangers and discomforts, came the Torah, our People's proudest possession.
Torah has given to our People its most authentic character and to all humanity the most valued promise of hope for the future redemption of humanity. Dear students, if our People could hear the voice of God in that desolate desert wilderness, then you can hear the voice of God wherever your life's journey takes you, if you will but open yourself to allow God into your life.
(2) The Book of Numbers begins with God saying to Moses: take a census of the Jewish People. Moses took a census for the very same reason that America takes a census every ten years - in order to find out exactly how many people there were. So why do we need to know exactly how many people there were then or are now? Lesson number two - to teach us that every single person counts.
I think that is an especially important lesson in our day, when we are inundated with numbers. Because of computers and actuaries, statisticians and demographers, we are sometimes overwhelmed with data and the temptation is to treat people as mere numbers.
It has always seemed strange to me that there are people who actually try their best to be simply numbers - usually zeroes, in my opinion. They disappear into the background, hiding in their anonymity, mere cogs in the machinery of life. One such fellow was employed by a Duke and Duchess in Europe.
"James," the Duchess addressed this employee, "how long have you been with us?"
"About 30 years, your Ladyship."
"According to my records," said the Duchess, "you were employed to look after the dog."
"Yes, ma'am."
"James, that dog died 27 years ago."
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "What would you like me to do next?"
But there are tragically unfunny consequences of becoming zeroes or mere numbers. The Nazis began the process of destroying people in the death camps by branding each person with a number. It was easier to destroy a human being if he or she did not have a name and was not recognized as a person. Judaism teaches us that if you are going to count people, do so in a way that recognizes the power and potential of each individual.
So, it says in this first chapter of Numbers: s'oo et rosh kol adat b'nai Yisrael - lift up the heads of the whole community of Israelites. Lift up your heads for the census; stand tall. May those who count and those who are counted look each other in the eye and see each other as fully human. Let them see that it is human beings who count.
Chapter Two of Numbers reports the census totals tribe by tribe. But the chapter begins with this important verse. "The Israelites shall camp, each with his standard, under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall camp around the Tent of Meeting . . ." What a wonderful prescription for adulthood. You remember, dear confirmands, that as you prepared for becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, I insisted that 13 was not the age of adulthood, but rather young adulthood.
(3) Well, it is three years later now, and you are much, much closer to adulthood. So, for almost adults, lesson three - develop and live by your own standards. You have to have moral standards, an internal gyroscope to guide you in your actions. An unknown author pointed out that Patrick Henry shouted "Give me liberty or give me death!" and the next generation shouted "Give me liberty!" Your generation, I fear, shouts: "Give me!"
So much of what you think are your own wants and needs are, unfortunately, just the demands of people who have grown up wanting for almost nothing and who cannot imagine doing without. And we, your parents and grandparents, have made it that way. We wanted that you should not lack for anything. The result is that the clothing styles, the music, the judgement of who is cool and who is not, these often tend to come from your group, rather than from yourselves. And that is dangerous.
I have confidence in you; I have taught you all this year, I have known most of you all of your lives. I may have more confidence in you than you have in yourselves. You have good values. Make your choices by those values rather than by the mentality of the herd, the group. When going along with the group would lead you into a car about to be driven by someone who has been drinking or doing drugs, that can lead to tragedy. Seek your own standards and, have the courage to live by them.
(4) Lesson four. "Under the banners of their ancestral house." Take advice from your parents - you are not too old to do that. They may amaze you sometimes. Let me tell you one of my favorite stories. There were two children, one an optimist, the other a pessimist. Both children badly wanted a pony. Their parents were concerned about the unrealistic optimism of one and the destructive pessimism of the other. So, they decided to teach their children a lesson.
To the pessimistic child, the parents gave a fine pony. To the optimistic chid, they gave a large pile of horse manure. What happened? They found the pessimistic child sobbing uncontrollably. "Why are you crying?" the parents asked. "Because I got a beautiful pony and I am afraid it is so beautiful that somebody is going to try to steal it."
The parents found the optimistic child on top of the manure heap, industriously digging away. "Why are you digging?" the parents asked. "Well," the optimistic child smiled, "with all this manure there has to be a pony in here somewhere!"
My dear students, I suggest to you the optimistic approach. Even though a lot of what parents tell their children may seem to smell a bit, there is usually something of great value there if you will make the effort to dig for it.
(5) Lesson five. The Israelites shall camp around the Tent of Meeting. It was the Jew's first synagogue. Be part of your People. A synagogue is a house of meeting, house of learning, house of praying. Be part of the Jewish People wherever you live. Be proud of your heritage, continue your
studies - not just through Midrasha graduation, but in college, graduate school and for a lifetime. A Jew learns and a Jew prays. May you continue to develop your personal prayer life, your way of talking to and listening to God regularly - not just on holydays, holidays or peak life-cycle moments - but daily.
Wherever you live in the years ahead, join a synagogue, get involved in the life of the synagogue, give something of yourself to the synagogue, participate in its opportunities for lifelong learning and become part of your People's prayer life.
You have read the words of our siddur. "The synagogue is the sanctuary of Israel. Born out of our longing for the living God, it has been to Israel, throughout our wanderings, a visible token of the presence of God in our People's midst. Its beauty is the beauty of holiness; steadfast it has stood as the champion of justice, mercy and peace. Its truths are true for all people. Its love is a love for all people. Its God is the God of all people. . . Let all the family of Israel, all who hunger for righteousness, all who seek the Eternal, find God here - and here find life! (GOP p.332)
(6) Sixth and final lesson. God tells Moses to count people who are kol yotzey tzavah - count each person who is able to do battle. Asser Levy was among the 23 Jews who arrived on these shores exactly 350 years ago this coming September. Originally from Amsterdam. Levy was a great battler for the rights of Jews to be equal citizens with their neighbors. He objected to the discriminatory tax which was levied upon Jews in this new country as a compulsory substitute for miliary service. You see, military service was expected of all other people, but was not allowed for Jews. So Asser Levy petitioned for the right to stand guard in defense of New Amsterdam. When that right was refused, he simply proceeded to perform his military duties anyway, until the authorities finally agreed to permit him to do so officially.
Some months later, Levy presented a second petition to the effect that since he had participated in military duties with other burghers, he asked to become a full burgher - which he had been in Amsterdam. Again, the court denied his request. So Levy appealed over its head to the Director General and Council of the colony - and he won!
It was because of the willingness of Asser Levy to do battle for his rights that the Jews of New York were granted equal rights as citizens, a battle from which every American Jew has been a beneficiary.
Kol yotzey tzavah, there are times when every Jew must be prepared to stand up and be counted, to do battle. Who says one person cannot make a big difference? If we stop and think about it, Judaism is really the story of the power of one. Abraham was one man with a unique vision of the world; and he changed all of Western history. Moses, one little baby saved from the clutches of Pharaoh, went on to become the liberator of Israel. King David was able to defeat the entire Philistine nation when he slew Goliath. Again and again, one person makes all the difference in the world.
In fact, the power of one goes back to the very beginning of time. Our Mishna says the first human being was created alone, singly, to teach us that one who destroys a single human life, it is accounted to him as if he destroyed an entire world. And one who saves a single life is accounted as if he saved the entire world. From the perspective of Judaism, one can never exaggerate the worth of a single life. Each human life contains the entire world. As we read in our siddur (page 625), "Each of our lives is worth the life of the whole world; in each one is the breath of the Ultimate One. In affirming the One, we affirm the worth of each one . . ."
There are 18 students in this year's Confirmation Class. Eighteen is a very special number in Judaism - chet yud, chai, life, 18. This is my challenge to each of you, dear students, as you stand ready to ascend Sinai. You hold in your hands, each and every one of you, the life of our People. Nurture, protect, live that Jewish life fully. And may God bless you and our People all the days of your life. Amen
In preparing this message I've benefitted from the writings of Rabbis David Fass, Mark Greenspan and Samuel Chiel.
