This week the census continues with the census of the Levites. Afterwards, God tells Moses to isolate the lepers, and then explains a sin offering. Following this, God explains the procedure for the bitter waters rite for women suspected of adultery. We then get the instruction for a Nazirite, one who consecrate oneself for divine service for a period of time. Then the famous blessings of the priests to the congregation
May the Lord bless you, and keep you;
May the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
May the Lord lift up his face upon you, and grant you peace. [Numbers 6:24-26]
Yet in all that is going on in this portion, for the second time in a row I can’t get past the first two verses. For that matter, once again I got stuck on the word which gives this portion its name Naso. Naso literally mean lift, carry or Take away. The word that follows this is rosh, Head. Yet if you read a translation, there is
21. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 22. Take also a census of the sons of Gershon, throughout the houses of their fathers, by their families; [Numbers 4:21-22]
The phrase to lift the head is a way of saying take a census. But is there more nuances of meaning from this phrase?
I’ve found four ways to think about this phrase. The first is to understand it in this literal way of taking a census. This, of course is not the first time the issue of a census this has come up. God in the beginning of Parshat Ki Tisa gives directions for the census:
12. When you take the census of the people of Israel according to their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul to the Lord, when you count them; that there should be no plague among them, when you count them. 13. This they shall give, every one who passes among those who are counted, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary; a shekel is twenty gerahs; a half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. [Exodus 30:12-13]
Again the term here for take a census is lift the head. But interestingly one does not count people but money. The tradition is that one does not count people, so that people become mere numbers. Yet one can count objects, like coins. In one classic dodge of this rule, people counting for minyans might use the phrase “not Nine…not eight…etc.” or some will count by a ten word phrase.
Then again, we must remember the reason for this census. It is to establish the number of active individuals for service. Among the Levites it’s for the various function of Temple service, but for the other tribes it is military service. And so, as in English to be counted means also to participate.
Secondly we have the use of the phrase in Genesis. Joseph while in Jail interpreted the dreams of the chief butler and chief baker of Pharaoh. After the butler tells his dream Joseph responds:
And within three days shall Pharaoh lift up your head, and restore you to your place; and you shall deliver Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, after the former manner when you were his butler.[Gen 40:13]
But for the baker, Joseph says, in a bit of a very interesting double entendre which happens to work in both English and Hebrew.
And within three days shall Pharaoh lift up your head…off you, and shall hang you on a tree; and the birds shall eat your flesh off you. [Gen 40:19]
Then we read
20. And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. 21. And he restored the chief butler to his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand; 22. But he hanged the chief baker; as Joseph had interpreted to them. [Gen 40:20-22]
Here we have the second meaning, that to lift the head is to pay attention to a person, for good or bad. It is a sense of acknowledgement, of noticing the person as a person, and not as a number.
The third way to lift the head is one I mentioned two weeks ago. In Numbers 1:2, we find another way of taking the census besides shekels,
2. Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by families, by the house of their fathers, according to the number of names, every male by their polls;
The phrase by the number of their names is in Hebrew b’mispar shemot. The root word for number s-p-r (ספר) is also the root word for story by recounting events. The word Shemot usually means names. But can also, as it does in the very beginning of the book of Exodus Eileh shemot, translate to these are the genealogies, the stories of our ancestors and our own stories. Telling stories means that we transmit the information of the past to the present and hopefully the future. By telling our individual stories to the collective group our story become more than just ourselves it become part of our family or of our community.
Yet to tell a good story, one that people will listen to, we must raise our heads up for people to hear us. In my job I often have to do corporate training of adults. One thing I am very careful about when I conduct training sessions is making eye contact and looking at the face of the people in the room. There is the story of a miraculous thing that happened when the Hasidic masters, starting with the Baal Shem Tov, would give talks. The people listening would believe that the great master was talking specifically to them. Some of this is the skill to look at everyone in the room and make eye and face contact with every person. Another is to keep our head up to shine confidence. Then it becomes an upward spiral. As we tell our story, people will pay attention to our story, raising their heads, and as people pay attention to us it raises our own heads in confidence about our story.
The last meaning for our phrase comes from a rather interesting if not ironic, source. Its source is the very early legal authority Shammai, a character in a well-known story about his counterpart, Hillel:
On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder's cubit which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary; go and learn it.’`[Shabbat 31a]
Yet Shammai, the guy who goes chasing after people with a t-square was also recorded as saying in the Perkei Avot:
Shammai used to say: Make your Torah a habit; speak little, but do much; and receive everyone with a beautiful glowing (friendly) face. [M. Avot 1:15]
Shammai, rather ironically, states that we should greet everyone with a smile. Friendly expressions happen when we lift our head up enough to make eye contact and for others to see that glowing smile.
So the question remains… which one of these?
I posed that question as a Torah study question last weekend at my synagogue. And it was interesting all the answers we discussed. One rather interesting idea noted that the census of the first chapters of numbers is concerning military enrollment. Giving the example of World War Two oral history and letters home, the oral history given before one enlists or leaves for war becomes the record for future generations of their personal past. In the case of the Israelite soldiers or those Levites who are involved with the very dangerous work of handling holy objects, such things may be insurance about being remembered if one is killed in the line of duty. Another thought that developed within the group was that as we each tell our story within the group, the group becomes closer and with a more common purpose with the collective story. This grew to an interesting suggestion of having among the members of the group a way of collecting the personal stories of the group. One thought was to have everyone write a short version of our stories into a collective loose-leaf binder. Another was to take a few minutes to tell our stories within the group before the Torah service to make sure all new members felt welcome and their story was shared. Yet this last idea was met with an attack by one member who sharply shouted out: “then get here before services start!” reducing the person who gave this idea to tears. Oddly enough, this same attacker also came up to me afterwards and commented to me, that I needed to be brief in my D’var Torah and cut out all the stories.
I mention this because it was also the attacker who was almost crying about being not included in ongoing conversations, and I often do feel sad for her. I’ve been in that position myself many times. My own experience on this tells me we must lift all heads in conversation, and pay attention to listen and hear. If we are not open to recognize and acknowledge others, they will not acknowledge and recognize us. To tell our story we must be able to give and receive stories, otherwise the head does not lift. It is mutual. As I wrote this sitting in my favorite hangout spot, in an area of Chicago with many young beautiful women, I thought of one other issue about raising the head. Looking out the window at some of these beautiful women, I noticed the one thing that can kill the raising of one head is another head raised too high. As King David notes, in Psalm 101:5 “I will not endure the person who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart.” Here too the raising of the head is not mutual.
But I think in that Torah Study session, the comment that was the most mind-blowing was the person who said, “If you do the first three, then you get the fourth.” To get everyone participating, acknowledge them and to get them to tell their story leads to the smile.
Wow. Not much to say after that.
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