On Shabbat of Parshat Shekalim the beginning of Sedra Ki Tisa is read from a second Torah Scroll. The passage is about the counting of the Jewish people. Each adult male gave half a shekel, and thus their total number was known. The key words, Ki Tisa, can be translated as ‘when you count’ and also as ‘when you elevate, lift up’. These two meanings are seemingly opposite. Elevation means raising it to a higher level. But counting can be seen in a negative way, as the author of the Shelah asks: surely, ‘a blessing is only found in something which is hidden’, which is not counted!
The Maamar explains that there are two kinds of numbering: of this world, which is negative, and of Olam HaBa, the World to Come, which is positive. The counting of the Jewish people was of the World to Come, which is positive.
The Talmud (Beitza 3b) also describes two kinds of counting: things which are always counted one by one, et shedarko limnot, which are therefore considered very significant; and things which are sometimes counted but sometimes are just sold in bulk, kol shedarko limnot.
The key words are et and kol. The Hebrew word et is the sign of the direct object, with no direct English equivalent. It signifies selflessness, bitul.
Things in this category are in a state of bitul and are therefore like the spiritual counting of Olam HaBa. But the word kol, although it has positive connotations, signifying the Sefirah Yesod, joining heaven and earth (which will be explained below), also expresses a chain of levels descending to evil as seen in the words from the liturgy of the daily Morning Service: ‘G-d forms light and creates darkness, makes peace and creates ‘everything’, kol’. This adapts a verse in Isaiah (45:7) which ends ‘creates evil’. Thus the word kol can include evil. Hence kol is the counting of This World, potentially negative and dangerous.
However, there is another way to understand the force of the word kol. This word is understood in Chassidic teachings as meaning the Sefirah Yesod (Foundation). A biblical verse includes the phrase ‘for kol Heaven and Earth’, which is translated by the Aramaic Targum as ‘joining Heaven and Earth’. Thus the word kol ‘joins’ Heaven and Earth, the higher and the lower dimensions, which is the function of the Sefirah Yesod, joining the higher ‘male’ Sefirot with the ‘female’ Malchut, Kingship.
Further, the Sefirah Yesod represents Joseph. A famous teaching of the Sages is that the evil eye does not affect the seed of Joseph, based on the verse ‘and he will increase like fish’ (Vayechi 48:16). This means that Yesod has two states. If it simply descends below, it has the negative aspect of counting, subject to the danger of the evil eye. But if it is connected to G-d above, as in the passage from the Morning Service, ‘joining heaven and earth’, which means being bonded to the Divine, it is elevated and is beyond danger.
The seed of Joseph can thus be seen to have two qualities. On the one hand they are like fish, nullified in the sea, representing the sacred hidden realm. At this level they express et, selflessness and sanctity. On the other hand they descend down, down into the revealed realms, which can include evil, but there too they preserve their sense of connection with the One. Thus they also signify kol which has been elevated.
Now we can understand the counting of the Jewish people. They too express both aspects: et and kol. They are counted, through giving the half-shekalim, which is a form of giving Tzedaka. The counting is not dangerous, but in fact uplifts them, as in the words Ki Tisa, which can be translated both as counting and raising up. This is because the Tzedaka has the power to lift them.
The Jewish people share the quality of the Hidden Realm, signified by their having passed through the Splitting of the Sea, and the Revealed Realm of this world. They can carry the highest spirituality into the lowest realms of This World by virtue of the Tzedaka they give, including the spiritual Tzedaka of spreading the Wellsprings of Chassidic teachings to the outside.
The Shelah spoke of the two different kinds of counting, that of The World to Come and that of This World. But the counting of the Jewish people through the half-shekalim in fact joins the World to Come and This World, as will particularly be revealed with the coming of Moshiach, with the true Redemption.
