Parshat Bamidbar - Memorial: Counting the Fallen Soldiers, Counting Blessings

Parshat Bamidbar 2011/5771

Remembering the Fallen Soldiers, Each and Every One

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

We approach Memorial Day, the day for remembering our fallen soldiers.  Each soldier fell serving our country.  As the Israeli poet Zelda wrote, “Lechol ish yesh shem…” Every person has a name.  Every soldier has a name.

We remember the 116, 516 who fell in World War I.

405,399 in World War II.

36,574 in Korea.

58,200 in Vietnam.

383 in the first Gulf War.

Nearly 6,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And these numbers do not tell the whole story.  They do not tell the story of many other conflicts and operations in which American personnel were involved.

They do not tell the story of the wounded, with wounds physical and emotional.

But as this Memorial Day approaches, we focus on those who went out and did not come back.  We focus on their sacrifice.

We begin tomorrow the fourth book of the Torah, and we see with a mysterious clarity the way that the parsha describes the counting of the men of Israel for battle, all those 20 and above, kol yotzei tzavah, all who are able to bear arms, “to go out to war”.

46,500 of the descendants of Reuben.

59,300 of the descendandts of Shimon.

All together 603,550.

The size of about 40 army infantry divisions.

While the mustering in Bamidbar appears to be with military organization and deployment in mind, the great Rashi shares a view that seems to be at odds with the text on this point.

Rashi teaches, “God counts them all the time out of love.  When they left Egypt, God counted them.  When they brought themselves low in the sin of the Golden Calf God counted them to find out how many survived.  When God comes to cause the Presence to dwell among them God counted them…”(Rashi to Bamidbar 1:1)

While Rashi’s interpretation does not necessarily conflict with counting the troops for war, it does lead us into the realm of the gentle love of a parent counting her children, a teacher counting his students, a child counting her toys to make sure everything is there.

The message here for us as we approach Memorial Day is that God counts the soldiers who will fight for Israel in order to express a sense of connection to each one, to let them all know that they are fighting for their people, that they are not alone as they go off to war. 

God may only order the counting of the males, but the males do not walk separately from everyone else – they are one, just as we are one with our servicemen and women who fight for us.  We may not know them all personally but we are connected to them.

We will see many of them Monday morning.  We will pray with them and remember with them.

May the example of the lives of all those who sacrificed for us inspire us to count, to “count our blessings”, to not take freedom for granted, to strengthen our faith and community in a world where natural disaster and conflict threaten, to serve our families, our towns, our religious communities so that we might build up a stronger sense of who we are and what our mission is in this world.

Please rise for a special memorial prayer in memory of fallen soldiers…