This week’s Torah portion is a continuation of the first census. At the beginning of the book of Numbers, God says, Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head.
Several months ago, I was at a meeting of the Athens-Clarke County Census Complete Count Committee, and was asked to share a religious teaching that might connect to the then upcoming American Decennial Census. My mind immediately went to this verse.
I shared that the Israelite census reminds us that we have to count everyone. But this counting is not only to determine numbers for funding formulas or the determination of voting districts. We count members of our community so that we can learn about them and understand them. In other words, Moses had the obligation to not only count the Israelites, but also to make each one count; to ensure that each member of the community had something to contribute, that each one mattered.
We need this lesson right now, because as a society, we have forgotten that each person matters.
I’m sure that many of you have read about the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in our own state of Georgia, and the recent tragedy of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Amy Cooper, a white woman that was walking her dog in Central Park, called the police because a black man asked her to leash her dog.
We have a serious racism problem in America, in Georgia, and yes, even in Athens, and we need to be honest with ourselves and admit it. Like Moses, we have to “count” what’s there, taking stock of what’s around us, even if it makes us uncomfortable … perhaps especially if it makes us uncomfortable.
I am committed to being an anti-racist. It’s not enough to not be racist, or not to do racist things. Tzedek tzedek tirdof, we must pursue justice by actively calling out racism and racist tendencies. And we need to have the courage to admit to ourselves that many of us, myself included, may have beliefs and opinions that have a certain bias or stereotype.
Moses was instructed to conduct the census, but even our Torah doesn’t get it totally right. Moses was only commanded to count the men in the Israelite society. We read it now through the lens of our current values and morals. And, it needs to continue to reform and change. We need to take a hard look at ourselves and promise that we can do better. We must do better. I hope that is something that we can all count on.
