Bo 5773: Who Really Counts?

This week's parashah/Torah portion contains one of my most favorite passages.  Moshe and Aaron are back in front of Pharaoh for yet another round of pre-plague negotiations.  Pharaoh asks who among the Israelites would go out into the wilderness to worship the God of the Israelites if Pharaoh were to give his permission.  Moshe replies:
"We will all go, young and old: we will go with our sons and our daughters..." (Sh'mot/Exodus 10:9).  

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Pharaoh's reply is infused with skepticism:  "He said to them, "Adonay would be with you like that, when I would let you and your infants go! . . . It is not like that.  Go--the men!-- and serve Adonay, because that is what you're asking." (10: 10-11)

There is a good deal of formal counting of "noses" in the Torah:  before getting ready to leave Egypt, at significant junctures in the 40 years of wandering, on the eve of entering the Land . . . Israel gets counted.  In those counts, we've seen that it is the men who get counted:  the heads of the tribes get counted, the heads of the households get counted, the males fit for military service get counted.  So we might get the impression that women don't count in our defining text as the foundations of Judaism are laid down.

This passage shows us otherwise.  Yes, males get counted when there needs to be a sense of how many political or socio-economic units make up the עם/ahm/nation of Israel, how strong a military force is available to defend our people.  But when Moshe and Aaron are talking about who goes and who stays, the definition of עם is inclusive:  men and women,  young and old, sons and daughters, the able-bodied and the frail, the economically significant and the dependent.  Moshe makes it clear to Pharaoh that when Israel leaves Egypt it will be all of Israel, every single Israelite soul counts.

So it is in the best of Jewish communities today:  everyone counts.  Everyone is valued for the talents and the experience and the intelligence and the creativity and the humor and the dedication and the resources we each bring to the community . . . each individual's configuration of these elements is valued as essential to the well-being of the community as a whole.  No one has it all:  some of us are great organizers.  Some of us brainstorm inspiring ideas.  Some of us reach deep into our pockets.  Some of us are there to support mourners.  Some of us lighten the mood at meetings.  Some of us bask in the limelight.  Some of us thrive behind the scenes.  

One of my most beloved "us" moments here at Torat Yisrael is our Torah at the Table Shabbat morning study sessions (the second and fourth Saturdays of the month at 9:15 am).  Around the table, covered with munchies and coffee mugs and chumashim/bibles, we read and discuss Torah.  Any given Torah at the Table can see Cohen School kids and their parents, empty-nesters and grandparents, all studying Torah together, all listening to and pondering each others questions and suggestions.  That's us.  A community of young and old, sons and daughters brought together by Torah.  

Moses described it.  We live it.