The weekly portion, Be-midbar, begins with taking a count — counting the male Israelites able to go to war, divided according to tribes.
Today we are in the midst of several counting activities at once:
We are counting the days between Passover and Shavuot, the“counting of the omer,” and we are almost finished.
We are counting the days since October 7, 2023. It has been 601 days, and we do not know how long we will need to count.
We are keeping count of the number of hostages remaining in the hands of Hamas: 58, counting the living and deceased.
And around the hostages are countless circles of families and friends, and Israeli society as a whole, which is concerned about them.
Numbers, dates …
We try to provide explanations for our world through numbers, we try to convey the urgency, as Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote, “Every moment that one tarries in redeeming captives when it is possible to do so earlier, it is as if one is shedding blood.”
We pray that just as the counting of the omer is approaching its anticipated conclusion, so may the count of days of captivity soon come to an end—for everyone, for all of us.
“May God grant strength to God’s people, May God bless God’s people with peace.”
