The Incredible Human Spirit

B'Midbar

by Rabbi Avi Billet

There are seven instances in the Torah when a tally of the army-age males is given to us. Twice they are rounded to "600,000 foot soldiers" (Shmot 12:37 and Bamidbar 11:21). The first three times they are counted to more exact specifications, first with the half-shekel (38:26) and twice in our parsha (1:46 and 2:32), the census result is 603,550. The last two "exact numbers" are: 601,730 (Bamidbar 26:51) and "none missing from that count" (Bamidbar 31:49).


While the fact that the two censuses in our parsha return the same numbers is not surprising, the fact that they are the same as the census at the end of the book of Shmot is quite surprising.

Since Vayikra began on the first of Nissan, and Bamidbar begins on the first of Iyar, we can suggest equal numbers are on account of a minimal passage of time.

And yet, we know that people die every day. Certainly individuals between age 20 to 60 died during that month. Nadav and Avihu died. The blasphemer presumably died (the Meshekh Chokhmah points out that the Torah does not say that "he died" in Vayikra 24:23, but it is pretty clear that he did).

There is a discussion in the Midrash Eichah Rabba as to how many people died during the years in the desert. Was it 15,000 per year? Was it 15,000 plus a little? Did the numbers fluctuate year to year? Did only 60 year-olds perish, or did people get to live longer, even though the exodus generation were all destined to die in the desert? The Ritva on Baba Batra 121a explores all the particulars, recognizing that the arguments only become relevant after the incident with the spies (Bamidbar 13-14), when the forty-years decree is made.

In our parsha, we are still a few months before that episode.

I believe this is the explanation for why there is no discrepancy in the censuses of 603,550.

Until the incident of the spies, the path of the Israelite nation was to march to the land of Canaan, to take it over as per God's promise and command, and to build a temple in the "place that God will choose" (Devarim 12).

With a mishap here and there, God surely foresaw what would transpire and knew the numbers would somehow remain balanced because 603,550 was supposed to be the size of the army conquering the land – no more and no less.

Once the setbacks begin in Bamidbar 11 and culminate with the spies three chapters later, the natural order of the world could continue. 24,000 die in Bamidbar 25:9, and yet the difference in numbers from our parsha to the census that takes place one chapter after that plague, (around 38 years after the original census) is a little less than 2,000 people. 

The ways of God are unknown to us, but the power of the human spirit is something we see very often. Sometimes doctors will give a person a limited amount of time to live, only to see the person defy the medical textbooks, and then some.

Sometimes a marriage of 5 or 6 decades ends with a death, and a perfectly healthy widow or widower dies shortly thereafter, having wanted only to "be with" the spouse who passed first.

While I cannot account for how individuals did not enter the 20-year-old zone, I imagine that those Israelites who experienced the Exodus and wanted only to see the Promised Land were able to mobilize the incredible human spirit to delay the course of how things "might have been."

In this week following our president's flip-flop in his hopes for Israel, and the aftermath of a strong AIPAC conference, let us hope that the human spirit of our people and the State of Israel will retain its resolve to see the Promised Land for what God promised it would be in good times (in last week's parsha Vayikra 26:3-13): a land where the rain falls and the crops grow, where you can live securely without the sword passing through. Where a minimal army will easily defeat a multitude of enemies, who will be chased away and fall by the sword if they choose to fight. Where our numbers will only grow, and God's sanctuary will forever be in our midst.