Counting: a traditional Jewish perspective

As Australians prepare to be counted in the pending census, we reflect on biblical and halachic considerations in regard to counting persons.
The first biblical reference to a national count is in Shemot (30:12). Moses was told: “When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their counting, then each man will give atonement for his soul when you count them; then there will be no plague as you count them. This each man shall give, half a shekel…”

At this point however no count actually occurred. Although even earlier the Torah enumerated the 70 souls who came down to Egypt (Bereshit 46), Israel’s first real census was that at the beginning of “Bamidbar”, which took place literally “bamidbar – in the desert” in the second year after the Exodus. Because of that census and another that took place before entrance into the land, that fourth book of the Torah is also called “Chumash Hapekudim – the Book of Counting” – which literally translates into its English name “Numbers”.

Interestingly, in light of the prohibition on direct counting implied above, Ramban suggests that the counting in the desert was not done directly but by counting half-shekels donated as per the aforementioned command in Shemot, reread each year prior to Pesach, the festival celebrating our very existence as a nation whose numbers are to be compared to the dust of the earth and the sand of the sea.

Whilst the primary biblical source for halachic derivation is the Chumash which includes that warning that counting persons directly could bring on a plague, the Talmudic sages derived the prohibition of direct counting of individuals from King Saul, who counted the people “b’telaim”. (I Samuel 15:4.) Although that phrase could simply mean “in Telaim”, a particular place, a “t’leh” is a lamb, and the sages understood the phrase literally to mean “by lambs”. Saul counted one lamb for each man instead of counting the men directly.

And just a generation later it was clarified that even counting indirectly is permitted only for the purpose of a mitzvah. For no purpose at all, counting is forbidden. Thus King David was punished for arranging a census merely “so that I may know the number of the people” (Samuel II 24:2) – although he had not been punished for numbering his soldiers, which was necessary for making war. (II Samuel 18:1.)

However, the concept of a national census aside, traditional negativity towards counting of individuals extends to the well known prohibition of counting men for a minyan. What is the purpose of such a prohibition that seems to negate a requirement to carry out a mitzvah – davvening with a minyan?

The answer is that like the restrictions regarding a census, this much more often encountered prohibition emphasises the uniqueness of each human being. A person’s unique qualities can never be reduced to some numerical quantity. Two human beings is not in any meaningful sense “twice as much” as one. Reuven plus Shimon do not “sum together” to equal two, rather they remain the same Reuven and Shimon as before. We are not just numbers but individual persons.

Sadly so many Jews learnt under terrible circumstances the difference between having a name or a number. Concentration camp commanders told their terrified victims that since entering the gates of hell they had no names or personality any more – as part of the process of destruction of all vestiges of their humanity, they were reduced to no more than the numbers tattooed onto their shattered bodies.

Of course ultimately there are times when we are interested in the number of people. When making war King David justifiably counted his men so as to know the strength of his army. In the everyday synagogue situation, no matter how unique each individual is, 10 adult Jewish men are required to constitute a minyan. Even if counting people directly fails to take account of each person’s uniqueness, refraining altogether from counting fails to acknowledge the importance of sheer numbers. So what is the answer?

As is so often the case in the practical application of Judaism, here too custom comes to the rescue. The most common way of calculating a minyan is to count according to the 10 words in a particular biblical verse. Each word in a verse is unique and without it the sentence would lose its meaning. Yet the totality of a verse is so much more than the sum of its constituent parts – indeed a lesson for every aspect of Jewish national life for which we are all to be counted.

I conclude by emphasising the general halachic consensus that matters outlined above do not negate participation in contemporary censuses based on forms and beneficial to populations. There are no halachic reasons to refrain from participation, and every reason to ensure that our numbers as recorded reflect our true situation amidst the Australian community. And I would add that given absolute confidentiality of each individual submission there are no grounds for any individual to refrain from stating religion because of fear arising from the waves of antisemitism being experienced at this time.

Shabbat shalom,
Yossi

Yossi Aron OAM is The AJN’s religious affairs editor.