Why Counting People is Forbidden

By BRENT CHAIM SPODEK

Parashat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20)

The Tanach counts Israelites three separate times in order to send them to war.¹ First, almost a year after leaving Egypt, Moses counts more than 600,000 Israelite men of fighting age at Mount Sinai by having each of them submit half a shekel.² Second, at the beginning of this week's parshah, Bamidbar, Moses counts the number of Israelites capable of bearing arms as they prepare to conquer the land of Israel.³ In fact the English name for Sefer BaMidbar, the Book of Numbers, comes from this enumeration of warriors. Finally, generations later in Jewish history, King David has his chief-of-staff spend nearly a year counting 1.3 million soldiers who are "ready to draw the sword."⁴ Here, the Tanach seems to count people in order to know how many of those people are ready to go and kill.

But it is not only for war that the Torah contemplates the number of Israelites. God promises Abraham progeny as numerous as the stars in the sky⁵ and God promises Jacob that his children will be as numerous as the dust of the earth.⁶ Impossibly large numbers to be sure, but numbers nonetheless. Here, the Torah seems to count people in order to know how many of them will continue the covenant of Abraham.

We can count people for good, or we can count them for ill, but ultimately, the Jewish tradition thinks we shouldn't count people at all. Based on the verse, "the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which may not be measured nor counted,"⁷ Rabbi Eleazar, one of the rabbis of the Talmud, taught that the counting of Jews prohibited by Biblical law. That reticence was absorbed into Jewish law⁸ and continues in the practice in many synagogues of counting the number of people present for prayer services indirectly. In some places, people are counted negatively — not one, not two, etc.; in others, they are counted using each word in a ten-word biblical verse as a number.⁹

Why has counting people become forbidden? One explanation is that counting is a preparation for war, but clearly, this is not always the case. We count for prayer, we count our children and our children's children. One rabbinic tale even imagines God counting the Jewish people one by one with tremendous love, the way a rich man might count the number of fine pearls on a string.¹⁰ In fact, in the same Talmudic discussion in which counting is prohibited, Rabbi Isaac says explicitly that it is forbidden to count Jews even for commanded ritual acts.¹¹

Whether we count people for good or for ill, we reduce people to their function when we count them. Six hundred thousand soldiers. Ten people for prayer. Twenty thousand people at a rally. We lose sight of them as individuals and tie their worth to some external goal, be it as hateful as war or as laudable as prayer. But when it comes to human beings, Jewish tradition argues that one is the largest possible number. There are 600,000 individual soldiers, each his own parents, his own loves and hopes. Each with his own favorite flavor of ice cream, and to see each only as one among many is to reduce his human form to his soldierly function.

Each human is valuable simply for being a Divine creation and to count him or her is to suggest that human value stems from the purpose for which it is being counted. The Torah demonstrates this concern in the way the text itself counts its inhabitants. When the sons of Jacob are counted, the Torah begins by saying that he had twelve sons.¹² These twelve sons do serve a purpose — to continue the line of their father and fulfill God's blessing to him. But then, the text goes on to list the sons each by name and by the name of his mother, showing that each is more than just this purpose. Although the sons are counted, they are listed by name and thereby their individuality and their humanity are maintained:

Reuben
Simeon
Levi
Judah
Issachar
Zebulun
Joseph
Benjamin
Dan
Naphtali
Gad
Asher

Each is important not only for his contributions towards some external goal, but simply for his existence.

It is too easy, when listing numbers of people, be they ten, one thousand, or six million, to forget each of the people that makes up that number. An infinitely patient God may count infinite people seeing each and every one, even though they will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, but we cannot. From the vantage point of infinity, God can look at the stars and see each one individually, in all its unique beauty. We humans see only the night sky.

¹ Encyclopedia Judaica, Census.
² The census takes place at Exodus 38:26; Benno Jacob suggests that perhaps the half shekel was anticipatory atonement for the blood they would shed on the battlefield. See the JPS Etz Hayim Torah Commentary to Exodus 30:12.
³ Numbers 26:2, 51 records 601,730 adult males.
⁴ II Samuel 24:9
⁵ Genesis 15:5
⁶ Genesis 28:14
⁷ Hosea 2:1, which is part of the haftara usually read with Parashat BaMidbar.
⁸ Mishnah Torah, Sefer Avodah, Hilchot Temidim Umussafim 4:4.
⁹ One common verse for this is Psalm 28:9: Save Your people and bless your heritage, tend them and elevate them forever.
¹⁰ Bamidbar Rabba 4:2
¹¹ Yoma 22b
¹² Genesis 35:22-26

Reprinted with permission from American Jewish World Service.