How many glass dishes do you own? You probably don’t know, because you never counted them. And you never counted them because glass dishes are not that valuable. Now, how many diamonds do you own? Ah, that you do know! You know how many diamonds you have because they’re valuable. Says the midrash in the beginning of this week’s parsha, that’s why Hashem is counting us all the time, to show us how valuable we are. Only precious items are counted one by one, and Hashem wants to show us, His beloved children, just how precious we are.
The pasuk says “seu es rosh kol adas bnei Yisroel” - lift up the heads of Klal Yisroel. Why does the pasuk use the language of “seu” - lift up – instead of just saying “count Klal Yisroel”? Also, why do we read Parshas Bamidbar every year right before Shavuos, even during a leap year?
Rav Moshe Feinstein explains that when Klal Yisroel was counted, every Yid was given a number, showing that every Yid is important regardless if he is a tzadik or not. This is called “nesias rosh”, lifting up every Yid. We each have a mission to fulfill in this world, and if we are alive, that means Hashem wants us to be here to fill our unique role in this world. At times we may think to ourselves, “Who am I anyways? What can I do already? I’m not a talmid chochom or anything special...” These feelings of inferiority will lead a person to think, “What’s so bad if I do one aveira? I am so not important; it won’t matter”. How do we respond to such thoughts?
The word Yisroel stands for “yesh shishim ribu oisiyos hatorah” (there is 600,000 letters in the Torah). This, says the Megale Amukos, is to hint to us that every Yid represents one letter in the Torah. And just like a Sefer Torah becomes pasul if it is missing a single letter, so too every Yid is needed to make up Klal Yisroel. Each and every individual Yid is so precious, so important in Hashem’s eyes. Whether you’re learning twelve hours a day or a half hour, that doesn’t make you more or less beloved by Hashem. He treasures you for who you are and each mitzvah you do is precious and sacred.
Says Rav Moshe, this is what gives us strength to be able to keep the Torah and learn it. When every person, on his level, realizes that his contribution is so important, then he can be mekabel the Torah. Therefore, Parshas Bamidbar and the idea of counting Klal Yisroel is a fitting prelude to Matan Torah.
Every yid was given a tafkid, a unique job in this world, and Hashem has different expectations from each of us. This is compared to an army. In an army, you need an air force, tanks, missiles, a navy, and many different battalions of soldiers. It’s not enough to have one strong soldier. And just because one high-ranking soldier is an expert in his field, it doesn’t mean that his comrades are insignificant. Every soldier makes a difference, every plane makes a difference, every weapon adds to the army’s strength. So too, the yetzer hara is such a mighty enemy that we need a group effort to conquer him. Every Yid with his avodas Hashem and Torah adds holiness to the world. When a single Jew has a spiritual challenge and withstands it, he breaks down the forces of impurity in the entire world. Yes, our own individual decisions are so powerful that they impact everyone and everything. And that’s because each of us really is so important, so precious, so beloved to Hashem.
There was a gabbai of a shul who had a strange “ritual”. At the end of Simchas Torah, he would drop the keys of the shul on the bima and announce that they should find a replacement for him as he was retiring. Every year the people would tell him, “Please, stay one more year... you can’t leave us... who is going to take your place?” And every single year he agreed. This went on year after year, until one year a young congregant said “I will take your place”. When this new gabbai went to take the key, he realized that it was attached with a string to the old gabbai. The old man never intended to leave go of his position. It was too precious to him.
This is a mashal. The pasuk says “ki chelek Hashem amo, Yaakov chevel nachloso”– “For the portion of Hashem is His nation, Yaakov is the rope of His nachala”. Hashem says, “if you don’t act the way you are supposed to, I will send you away”. But the truth is that Hashem never sends us away; we are attached to him with a chevel, a rope. We are attached to Him forever.
Says the Bais Aharon, what comes out from this is an obligation for every yid to know that he’s a yachid, an individual in the world and there is no one to take his place. Because if there was someone like him, he wouldn’t be alive. We all have a unique mission and we have to fight our own battles with the yetzer hara. Each individual must do his own avodas Hashem in order for Moshiach to come. There’s no relying on “everyone else”; each of us is a vital piece of the beautiful puzzle that makes up Klal Yisroel. Only when we each do our part do we make up the complete picture.
There was once a simple Yid who approached Rav Plutchock and asked, “Why should I learn? I am not a talmid chochom. The Torah of a great person makes a difference; not my Torah. So why should I bother trying to learn?” Rav Plutchock told him that there was a conductor of a great symphony orchestra who led concerts from all over the world. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to attend a certain concert, but he listened to it from his home. He was asked what he thought about the concert, and he said it wasn’t that good because out of the 120 musicians, only 14 violinists showed up out of 15. They asked him, “How were you able to know that one violinist didn’t show up”? He said, “being that I am the conductor and the conductor has to know every single note, I realized one note was not being played. That’s how I knew that they were missing one violinist”. Rav Plutchock told this Yid, “Maybe to a human being it doesn’t matter if you learn or not, but Hashem is the conductor of the world, who knows every note that is supposed to be played, who knows every word of Torah that is supposed to be learned, and to HIM it makes a difference!”
If we are here on this world, we have something that Hashem wants us to fulfill. Yes, you are important, you are special, your avoda is precious and unique. And only when each one of us is performing his part, creating his own unique music, only then can we succeed in the great symphony called Klal Yisroel.
