Parshas Bamidbar, 5785

All that were counted were 603,550.” (Bamidbar 1:46)

Bamidbar begins with a census of Bnei Yisrael, listing the total in every shevet and concluding with a final tabulation: 603,550.

Then the Torah moves on to discuss the flags of the shevatim. Here, too, each shevet is listed with the number of people, and at the end the Torah again gives us the sum total: 603,550. (2:32)

This repetition begs a question. We know the Torah is especially careful with its words; we can even expound major laws from an extra letter. The Midrash explains that the redundant reference of numbers here, both for each individual shevet and the total number, indicates Hashem’s love for us, that He kiveyachol “loves” to count us repeatedly. (Rabbi Yissocher Frand)

Several years ago, Erev Shabbos Hagadol, I was finishing up some last-minute dishes. As I turned to put the bowls away, I thought I heard a crack, and then my back seized and I couldn’t move. I must’ve made some noise, because my daughter came running in. She gently helped me to bed where I lay completely immobile, waves of incredible pain shooting through me. I couldn’t even move to bentsh licht, and by the the time the seudah came, the pain was so great I could barely breathe.

Hearing me panting and moaning, my husband rushed to a neighbor who was a Hatzalah volunteer and asked if he had something for my pain. The neighbor graciously came to our house, royally decked out in his shtreimel.  aking one look at me, he promptly pulled out his phone from his beketshe pocket and called an ambulance. The incongruity shocked me for a minute, but then I managed to whisper, “It’s just my back. No ambulance!”

“When someone’s in that much pain, he goes to the ER,” countered the chassid.

The Ramban, however, gives a different explanation, saying this redundancy highlights a miracle. Three weeks transpired from the time they were originally counted until the day they actually set up flags. During those 21 days, miraculously, nobody died from the entire nation, leaving the total number the same all those three weeks.  Still, is this miracle so critical that the Torah uses so many words to highlight it? 

Despite my feeble protests, I was off to the ER. They gave me injections for pain and relaxing the muscles, muttering about a possible slipped disc and whatnot. I spent Shabbos in a drug-induced haze, but still feeling the pain — of guilt.