Bamidbar: The Book of Assignment

This week we start the fourth book of the Torah. In the Jewish world this book is usually called Bamidbar.  That label comes from the first distinctive word in the book: 

וַיְדַבֵּ֨ר יְ

 אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֛ה בְּמִדְבַּ֥ר סִינַ֖י בְּאֹ֣הֶל מוֹעֵ֑ד בְּאֶחָד֩ לַחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִ֜י בַּשָּׁנָ֣ה הַשֵּׁנִ֗ית לְצֵאתָ֛ם מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם לֵאמֹֽר׃

AND the Lord spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinay, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Miżrayim,

In English, the book is called "Numbers."  The talmud also calls this book (something like) Numbers . In Yoma 70a it is referred to as:  חוֹמֶשׁ הַפְּקוּדִים.  The Septuagint translators in the second century BCE called it Arithmoi (numbers in Greek) 

There is a very important difference between Numbers and Piqudim. Mathematically, numbers are scalar, they are designations without directions. Piquidim are vectors.  The numbered individual is also given an assignment - to a tribe, to a task, to a place. Numbers are data, piquidim are information. 

The first use of the word PKD (Genesis 21:1)  is when Gd ( at long last) remembers the childless Sarah and she (miraculously) has a child: Isaac.   In this case, Onkelos translates  the word,   פָּקַ֥ד PQD  as   דְּכִיר , remembered.  I was taught that Gd does not forget, so how can Gd remember? This could be a translation issue. If we take PQD to mean "assignment," Gd gave Sarah an assignment. Then,  the problem (almost) goes away. Her pregnancy at that time was Sarah's place in the grand plan,  (which is hidden from humans). 

In Bamidbar (our parsha), PQD assigns each Israelite to a tribe and it assigns each tribe to a positions surrounding the sanctuary. The (scalar) numbers are used to assure  adequate  coverage in all four directions and places the largest group if the forward position.  The numbers reveal that the most privileged tribes ( the Levites and the sons of Joseph) had the smallest numbers. 

The PQD is a mechanism to rescue the people in the wilderness. It organizes them, everyone knows where s/he belongs. A rabble of liberated slaves, people whose days consisted of carrying out tasks ordered by the master, would be spiritually lost in the wilderness. The establishment of an order of co-dependence was required for their survival.  Everyone needs to belong; a place where that person counts. 

Is this the beginning of industrial society, with interchangeable people; jobs that need to filled? I can feel the tension between the anonymous  and the rooting of self in the group. The stories that unfold  in this book are the flower of this tension. 

There is a hidden PQD in the morning ( Shachrith) service for the Sabbath and holidays.  It is in a short, acrostic  poem : 

בְּפִי יְשָׁרִים תִּתְהַלָּל. 

 וּבְדִבְרֵי צַדִּיקִים תִּתְבָּרַךְ. 

 וּבִלְשׁון חֲסִידִים תִּתְרומָם. 

 וּבְקֶרֶב קְדושִׁים תִּתְקַדָּשׁ:

 

On an ordinary Shabbat, the name of Isaac ( Yithchok) emerges. During the high Holidays ( Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur)  the last word of each verse is rearranged and Isaac's wife, Rivka emerges. (Rivkah is the dominant character in the story. She is the parent that chooses Jacob over Esau)

 בְּפִי יְשָׁרִים תִּתְרומָם.

וּבְדִבְרֵי צַדִּיקִים תִּתְבָּרַךְ.
וּבִלְשׁון חֲסִידִים תִּתְקַדָּשׁ: .

וּבְקֶרֶב קְדושִׁים תִּתְהַלָּל

The first significant letters of the first words are: P.D.L.Q which rearrange to LiPQD. to assign, to count.  Having an assignment is satisfying. Having an assignment is demeaning. Can a person fulfill the assignment? In this poem, that is what we do not confront... but it is there.