Almost… which means that June is my last month here, and I will be taking time in Israel before I begin my next adventure in South Windsor. I will take this opportunity to ask all those who so generously lent me furniture and household items to please get in contact with me so that I can make arrangements to return these items to you. If you no longer want your item back, I will be happy to donate it, either before or after my move within CT.
In another bid to avoid addressing the first portion of the book of Numbers (B’midbar) I will remind all of you that I am barred from maintaining contact with members and staff of TBD for 12 months from the completion of my contract here. This may seem harsh, but your new rabbi deserves as much of a warm embrace upon her arrival as I received last August. It’s easy to put a reminder on your phone or calendar to reconnect with me in July 2024, just not all at once please. I am allowed to be in touch with Rabbi Gutterman.
Well, two paragraphs have shortened the amount of words devoted to the meaning of counting men of fighting age and entering the desert but there’s no escaping it. Our Torah portion opens with a census of all adult men according to their tribe. The total is 603,550 which while it is no small number, seems perhaps engineered. It is probably less than half of the entire people, as most adult men had at least one woman and one child in their household. The Levites weren’t included in the census either, again, something that seems engineered to me. Given that they had no ancestral land to sustain them but were supported by the rest of the people. Now it’s a stretch, but I am in a somewhat parallel position. I am a leader of Jewish ritual, I am not a member of the congregation and I am supported by its members. Unlike the Levites, I have no inherited authority, and thus no Priest or supervisor telling me what to do.
In some ways the rabbi is the antithesis of the Levite or Kohein, yet in every generation, in almost every community, there is a need for some form of religious leadership. The shifting from a sacrificial ritual system of worship to a liturgical (prayerbook) based one allowed all kinds of people to attain leadership positions. How effective these leaders were, are and will be relies much more on the involvement of the members of their communities than on the actions of the specific leader/rabbi. The message we can all take from this week’s portion is: Stand up and be counted! Raise your hand to say ‘I’m in’! You are an important part of our community!
Coincidentally the Annual Congregational Meeting is this Sunday at 7 pm, I look forward to counting you as a participant.
Shabbat Shalom Rabbi Leah Benamy
