Common Denominators

In the opening section of this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, the Torah issues a prohibition against taking a count or census of Jews in an ordinary way. The phrase “when counting them” is repeated twice in verse 12. We learn from this repetition that this prohibition is always in effect. It was not limited to this specific situation with Moshe. To avoid this problem, you may have noticed different ways the “Gabbai” of a synagogue counts to see if there are ten present for a minyan.

The Talmud Berachot, 62b, tells us that King David erred in this regard. This incident is mentioned in the Book of Samuel II, 24:1-15 and again in Chronicles I, 21:1-8. He, mistakenly, ordered a regular head count. As a result of this census, the nation was visited by a plague. Only after King David repented of his mistake, did God remove the plague.

This week’s portion relates another tragic episode in the development of the Jewish nation. The people saw that Moshe delayed in returning to them after ascending Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah. The people compelled Aaron to do something about it. The result was the creation of the “Golden Calf,” a sin whose effects we are still subject to today. Is there a common denominator running through the event of the Golden Calf and the sin of King David? Are there manifestations for us today?

Regarding the creation of the Golden Calf, Rashi (Shemot 32:1) tells us that the people miscalculated the time Moshe was to return. Moshe told the people that he would be gone for 40 days. They began counting the day that he went up. Moshe, however, meant forty complete days, 40 days including their respective nights. So, the day he went up did not render in the count of 40 days since it did not include the previous night. Moshe returned exactly when he said he would return. It is interesting that the people miscalculated by only half a day.

Rashi continues his comment and informs us that, “Satan came and confused the people. They saw in the clouds the image of Moshe on his deathbed.” When retelling the event of King David taking a census, Chronicles I, 21:1 begins, “Satan stood against Israel and enticed David to take a count of the people of Israel. “In both accounts, we see that “Satan” played a key role. In the non-Jewish world “Satan” is synonymous with the devil. Unfortunately, many people believe there exists a malevolent force working against God. This notion is heretical. In his “Guide for the Perplexed,” Rambam quotes Reb Shimon ben Lakish from the Talmud. “The Satan (Adversary), the Evil Inclination, (Yetzer HaRah), and the Angel of Death (Malach HaMavet) are one and the same thing.” No sage argues with Reb Shimon’s explanation. (The Guide: Book III, Ch. 22)  The Rambam understands from the words of Reb Shimon that the Bible employs three terms for powerful human emotions: “Angel of Death,” refers to our fear of death; “Yetzer HaRah,” refers to our internal desires and passions, and “Satan,” refers to our reaction to external events and phenomena (disease, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc.).

In our two cases, “Satan” is the term used by the Torah and Tanach to describe the powerful feeling of insecurity brought out by an external event. Our Torah portion tells us, this feeling of insecurity was aroused in the nation when Moshe did not return at their expected time. What was the “Adversary” that stood up against David? It was a powerful feeling of insecurity when he reflected on his enemy’s might. This feeling overpowered King David. It caused within him the immediate need to know the number of Jewish males eligible for military service.

On the other hand, large numbers of people doing something together or believing in the same thing creates a sense of security in the activity or idea. It instills a sense in a person that the endeavor to be undertaken is correct or the notion is the right way to think. Knowing there is a vast number of men eligible for conscription into the army can go a long way in assuaging fears a leader may have of military defeat and/or destruction of his county.

In truth, numbers have no bearing on the correctness of an action or idea. Why was Avraham called “the Hebrew,”  “Ha’Ivri, העברי?” The term “Ivri” “Hebrew,” comes from “עבר” meaning, “he crossed over to the other side.” Through the appellation “Ivri,” our Sages are teaching that  Avraham was on one side, philosophically speaking, in his knowledge of the existence of one, non-physical God. The rest of the world was on the other side, steeped in idol worship.

But we take comfort in numbers. The need to find security in numbers or its converse, fear, and dread that accompanies our insecurity, causes us to do foolish things or take unnecessary risks in our lives. The scared person needs a quick fix. That pressure invariably leads to an irrational action or thought to satisfy and calm the emotional crisis for the moment.

The extent of the people’s attachment to Moshe was misplaced. Judaism demands that we abandon any imaginary notion of a physical deity or human leader for that matter. At Moshe’s time, the nation did not fully internalize the various lessons learned from witnessing the miracles in Egypt or from their miraculous existence since leaving Egypt. Under duress, they immediately reverted to a primitive relationship with reality and attributed everything to the person they actually saw, Moshe. So too by King David, his feeling of insecurity caused him to put his reliance solely on the imagined power of a superior number of soldiers. When we improperly invest our emotions and are solely guided by them, the result is a form of idol worship, be it to an image or to a person.

In the “Guide for the Perplexed,” the Rambam emphasizes that the entire Torah came to uproot all forms and vicissitudes of idol worship. As human beings, this challenge is one we constantly face. The propensity for the sin of the Golden Calf, in all various forms, is one that we must be constantly on guard to prevent both collectively and individually.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Robert Kaplan