Bamidbar: Citizenship

 

Bamidbar: Citizenship

We are rapidly working toward Shavuoth, the festival of that ambiguous word, whose root, sheva, can mean  the (mystical and lucky) number seven or an oath. Shavuoth, seven weeks after Passover,is  associated with the assembly [rock concert] at Sinai, the light show surrounding the Divine communication of the Torah. The Torah, given at Sinai, is the document to which the Hebrews, and their descendants, the Jews, pledge their allegiance.

This week’s parsha, the beginning of the fourth book of the Torah, Bamidbar, is set some time after the events at Mt Sinai. It begins with a census. The census defines the status of those counted.  The records were supervised by tribal chieftains who presumably confirmed the ancestry ( and perhaps the loyalty) of each counted individual. This census had an economic impact. Only the descendants of those counted would obtain a portion in the Promised Land. They would be the landed and enfranchised citizens. The status of the excluded is not as good.

The text emphasizes the location: the midbar, the wilderness. They have gone from a world of oppression to a place that might not be able to sustain human life. Perhaps the unification into a nation and the accompanying compulsory military or ritual service soothes the terror of being lost and insecure. During the long exile of the Jews, with its alienations from the ambient culture and persecutions, that belonging served those that survived.

The science of evolution has an implicit post-hoc approach. The survivors have traits, and by virtue of being survivors, those traits are  presumed to have   served in the cause of survival. The remnant of European Jews, for the most part, initially kept their Jewish identities in one form or another. Had that helped them survive the persecution they suffered because of it?

This journey into the insecure is everyone's life story. Group identifications are necessary for most people in our complex world. Will the group have you? Do they allow Jews?

What about the survival of the group? The sacrifice of  the individual for the group is part of the deal that allows belonging.  This is the oath of loyalty. Fascism is a distortion of this mutuality. The individual serves the state without question; the state, in turn, benefits the individual. Outsiders are either burdens or enemies. All for one, one for all; us against them.

The Shavuoth experience is finding a destination in the wilderness. It is a great, broad unification. There is also an implicit oath of loyalty to a principle that supersedes the nation. Sometimes it is hard to find the right loyalty.