Who Counts, Who Doesn't?
by Wendy Stiver
Printer-frienldy version of the text
Introduction
When I first read Parashah Bamidbar, I regarded it as a written organizational chart created to bring order as the Jews prepared to enter the Promised Land. Beyond the basic genealogical litanies found throughout the Hebrew Bible, Numbers provides a 3-dimensional portrait of the tribal groupings' size, space, and sacred purpose. Woven into this narrative are metathemes of holy people fighting a holy war, the centrality of God’s designated sacred space, and “who counts, who doesn’t,” as I foreshadowed in the title to this commentary.
Given these metathemes, what speaks to me as an elderly, disabled, neurodivergent, feminist Jew? What lessons are there for the broader Jewish community, given the polarized times we live in?
To explore these questions, we will begin where the book of Numbers begins:
God tells Moses to conduct a census of the whole Israelite community by clans and families (Numbers 1:2). Two years out of Egypt, in the wilderness of Sinai, why did God want Moses and Aaron to conduct this massive bureaucratic project?
The Census: Historical, sociopolitical, and religious contexts
Censuses were not invented in Sinai, and have continued to this day. There is documentary evidence that censuses were conducted in Babylon, Sumer, Egypt, and Persia as early as 3800 BCE to serve the various needs of the ruling powers. For example, ancient Egyptian censuses originally counted livestock, and eventually evolved to count human populations to facilitate taxation and land distribution. Babylon employed censuses to track people, livestock, and crops to better manage food supply and taxation.
In Biblical times, God commanded that a census be conducted to implement a per capita tax to support the upkeep of the Tabernacle (Exodus 30:11-16). To summarize, the practice of conducting a census for administrative and taxation purposes was not new at the time of Moses and Aaron. An additional purpose of a census is to determine how many males are potentially conscriptible for military service. This was a major impetus for the census in Numbers 1-2, and would drive later censuses conducted by Imperial Rome and other empires and nation-states.
The Book of Numbers:
Numbers 1-4: Why did God need a census in the wilderness?
It could be argued that the powerful God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt already knew how many people there were wandering in the desert. The Torah abounds with examples of how “present” God was, hearing the people complain about the food, the lack of water, each other, and talking frequently to Moses. So why did God need a detailed, written census?
This was a time of transition for the Israelites as they continued the existential journey from slavery to freedom, from loosely structured tribes into a nation. Specifically, a nation of warriors preparing to claim the land of Canaan for Israel. God had given them the laws, they had the Tabernacle at the very center of their lives, and the book of Numbers memorializes the awkward maturation process the Israelites experienced in the desert.
What was the goal of the census? Who counted?
Frankel (1996) points out that “Numbers is an alternative version of Leviticus, probably edited by the priests and later times….{and} presents several dramatic object lessons about the dangers of rebellion and heresy. It warns its readers that a house divided and unruly cannot stand.” (197).
Rabbi Jay Asher LeVine (2023) offers the following:
Sefer B’midbar, the Book of Numbers, opens with an eye to order. The Israelites,only recently freed from slavery, dwell in a wilderness near Mount Sinai. Soon they are to enter a new land. Difficult confrontations are inevitable. God commands Moses to take a census (Numbers 1), to have the people arrange themselves by tribe in marching formation (Numbers 2), and to count the Levites and assign them to a special role of priestly leadership (Numbers 3-4). Each of these actions provides a sense of strength in numbers, clarity in structure, and readiness to take the next step together.
According to Numbers 2, God instructs Moses and Aaron where each tribal group is to encamp around the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting. From their assigned placements at the north, west, east, or south of the sacred center, the tens of thousands of Israelite men were to stay in this formation as they marched. For all this detail, Numbers 1-4 does not state where the women, children, and disabled are supposed to encamp. Where are the livestock supposed to be?
Who did the census not count? Who was invisible?
Given that the census was a tool for determining the population of humans available for military service and/or labor in accordance with the state's goals, it is not surprising that inhabitants unable to serve in these capacities were often excluded.
Women and girls were generally excluded, as were people with disabilities. In fact, centuries would pass before women and the disabled would be counted at all.
For example, the first U.S. census was taken in 1790 to gather information needed for apportioning political power, and counted all people. The U.S. census first recorded disabilities such as deafness and blindness in the 1830 census, and Britain began asking about them in 1851. The modern state of Israel has counted women in its census starting in 1948, and also counts and categorizes people with disabilities.
Remembrance and Redemption
The Passover would have still been a traumatic memory for many of the Israelites wandering in the Sinai. Numbers 3 delineates the descendants of Aaron and which clans would perform certain functions in the Tabernacle. God also tells Moses that the Levites belonged to God, and that they would take the place of the firstborn males claimed when God killed the firstborn males in the land of Egypt. Moreover, Moshe was commanded to give Aaron and his sons redemption money to “redeem” 273 extra Israelite firstborn males in the group. What does this say about how God reflects upon past events and divine actions? A topic for further study…
A nation of warriors and priests
Numbers 1 excludes the Levites from the census because God assigned them to the priestly class called to protect, care for, and transport the priceless structures and sacred objects of the Tabernacle as the people wandered through the desert. Based on the text, priestly duties were very complicated; the job descriptions for each group of Levites and Kohathites were highly exacting, and not without risk (i.e. death penalty if the wrong group looked at sacred objects at the wrong time, Numbers 4:20).
In Leviticus 21, the text limits those allowed to serve at the altar to those free of “defects” such as blindness, hunchback, a rash, or “crushed testicles.” There were no assistive devices, such as walkers or hearing aids, in Ancient Israel, nor were there long-term care facilities for frail elderly people. There were recurring passages throughout the Tanakh that emphasize compassion for the disabled, the widow, the orphan, and the poor. How then should we interpret the limitations on the service of disabled Levites.
Calabro (2021) summarizes the exclusion of priests with “defects” from service at the altar as follows:
The ideal of compassion toward those with disabilities runs like a binding thread through the texts of the Old Testament, including the law of Moses, the sacred poetry of the Psalms, the wisdom literature of Job and Proverbs, and the recorded visions of Israel’s prophets. These texts belong to a different cultural world from modern Western society; thus the conceptualization of disabilities that they embody may appear unfamiliar. Yet they also reveal a response to disabilities that resonates with modern Judeo-Christian values…
Some passages, however, may initially appear to stand in counterpoint to the compassionate ideal. Among these texts are the Lord’s commandment regarding the priestly service at the altar, which restricts this activity to those without certain “defects” (Leviticus 21:17–23),
Holy people holy war?
Again from Rabbi LeVine, “the Israelites represent a k’hilah k’doshah, a 'holy community,” and the ordering we read about in this parashah points to spiritual dynamics as well as practical logistics” (2023, p. 246). Rabbi Avi Fertig writes that the middah (virtue or moral characteristic) of seder (order) is woven throughout B’Midbar: “the Torah is God’s instruction to humanity for living a spiritually elevated life, and seder is clearly being stressed as a core spiritual value” (2020, 213).
Another commentary could examine the cognitive dissonance and perhaps moral distress caused by the concept of holy war, and how those committed to a sacred covenant can dedicate warfare to the Divine.
What is the broader teaching of this Parshah for disabled Jews in 2026?
Many of us have lived through war times and the imposition of the mandatory draft. This parashah illustrates what it looks like when a people is divided into warriors and priests. Women, the elderly, the disabled, and the young are not counted because they do not occupy the central roles needed by the nation. The irony is that there would not be a nation, or a people, without women, the elderly, the disabled, and the young. Writers of scriptural and historical texts can “invisibilize” women and the disabled, not record their names or stories, and commit epistemicide of historical truths; yet they cannot disappear and “uncount” all of us.
Calabro, David M. Disability and Social Justice in Ancient Israelite Culture, in Covenant of Compassion: Caring for the Marginalized and Disadvantaged in the Old Testament, ed. Avram R. Shannon, Gaye Strathearn, George A Pierce, and Joshua M. Sears. Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University. Retrieved from https://rsc.byu.edu/covenant-compassion/disability-social-justice-ancient-israelite-culture.
Fertig, Rabbi Avi. (2020), Seder-Order: the Measure and Ideal of Middot. In The Torah Mussar Torah Commentary: A Spiritual Path to Living a Meaningful and Ethical Life. Rabbi Barry H. Block, ed. Central Congress of American Rabbis.
Frankel, E. (1996). The Five Books of Miriam. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Havrelock, Rachel. (2008) Names and Numbers: The Israelites in the Wilderness. The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss, eds.
CCAT Press and Women of Reform Judaism.
LeVine, Rabbi Jay Asher. (2023). The Invisible That Enlivens Our World. In Prophetic Voices: Renewing and Reimagining Haftarah. Rabbi Barbara AB Symon, ed.
Central Conference of American Rabbis.
Wendy Stiver is a Research Scholar in Human Trafficking with the Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars, with interest in the intersections between misogyny, racism, predatory capitalism, ableism, and post-colonialism in modern slavery. She has been a Registered Nurse since 1981, with extensive experience as clinician, educator, and author. She is part of the Keeping It Sacred community, and active in interfaith circles.
