Numbers

Last week we began reading the Book of Numbers. We’ll be reading this 4th book of the Torah well into the summer. The book is called Numbers for obvious reasons… It is full of numbers – ages, dates, and most importantly grand censuses.

All these numbers got me thinking… I found some interesting information regarding the number of Israelites who left the land of Egypt. According to the first chapter of Numbers, the total census of men over the age of 20 totaled 603,550. If we factor in their families we’re at a number north of 2 million. That’s a lot of Jews!

A few years ago it seems that the U.S. Army Quartermaster did some calculations. He reported that it would have taken 1500 tons of food per day to feed all those people. Of course they had manna, so they didn’t have to worry. But if they needed to have the food brought in, it would have required a train 2 miles long! That many people would also need 11 million gallons of water daily.

And when they got to the Red Sea, if the sea were split just wide enough for them to cross through 2 at a time, it would have left them with a line 800 miles long and taken 35 days for all to make it across. Therefore, they needed a swath 3 miles wide to get the people walking 5000 abreast through the Red Sea so that they could accomplish the whole task overnight. And when they got to the other side and set up camp, it would have taken up an area of 750 sq. miles!

All of these numbers prompted the commentators in our Etz Haym Humash to write, “These figures presuppose a population of more that 2 million supporting itself for more than 40 years in the Sinai Peninsula. The numbers are impossibly large.” (p.773)

I love the Etz Hayim commentary. It’s a tremendous asset for our congregation. But I think this comment is short sighted. My guess is that 200 years from now, people will say what Holocaust revisionists are saying now: 6 million Jews were murdered in 6 years?! The numbers are “impossibly large”! Except that they are true. And who could believe that in 50 years a couple of thousand Jews in Israel would lead to an ingathering of nearly 7 million Jews in Israel? Those numbers could look “impossibly large”, too.

But the point is that if we believe the language of our prayers, then we believe that with Gd all things are possible. Gd can and has made miracles on a grand scale. That's what we celebrate at Pesach. And if grand miracles can happen for our people, then little miracles can and do happen for individuals all the time.