"If one wishes to merit the receiving of Torah, one must . . . be naked and completely empty, like
Midbar.
"*
This week we enter B’midbar, and we are invited to consider ourselves as the original wandering Jews: in wilderness. (Not necessarily “THE wilderness,” as Rabbi Stephen Kushner points out.) And what’s the first thing our Biblical ancestors did in this book, upon finding themselves in a featureless wasteland? They took a census. Numbers and tallies of the entire adult population, divided up by tribe; a way of organizing their chaos and their fear. Something about their predicament to record.
So too, we are now watching our numbers, locally and nationally: new cases recorded, hospitalizations, losses, those precious recoveries. Numbers can give us a sense of control even when they are enormous, overwhelming. “Hard” data helps harden our own resolve and it helps us plan with prudence and feasibility.