As we prepare for our annual commemoration of Kabbalat HaTorah on Shavu’ot, we annually celebrate Yom Yerushalayim and read Parshat BaMidbar, where we count the number of soldiers in each tribe of Israel. The interesting term used in the military census, “במספר שמות” (Bamidbar 1), “the NUMBER of the NAMES” seems extraneous. My teacher and friend R. Yoel Bin-Nun explains beautifully that the “number” is obviously necessary, representing that we are part of a nation and must sometimes forego our individualism for the sake of the klal. That’s why on our first day in the IDF we get our “serial number”, and that’s what liberating and defending our Land is about (see Ramban, Bamidbar 1, 3). This minimizing ourselves for the NATIONAL need, is the military and psychological point of the counting, both then and today. On the other hand, in the army of Israel each soldier also has a NAME. Like all religions, we too have the aspect of elevating ourselves spiritually as INDIVIDUALS with uniqueness, via learning my own Torah, choosing the stress in my mitzvah observance, and prayer (my personal relationship with G-d). Both the NAME and the NUMBER are similarly important, but in today’s “ME generation”, the western world must make a conscious effort to remember that Hashem created and gave the Torah to Israel, as a nation.
Yerushalayim represents exactly that: serving Hashem via Am Yisrael, via our national-religious capitol. Prayer was instituted and organized in preparation for our leaving to exile, where we lived as individuals for 2,000 years. But the original and ideal was to get close to G-d via Kohanim (our national representatives), and national pilgrimage to our uniting capitol 3 times a year. This is not about “Me”, and my spirituality, for “there’s no ‘I’ in the word: TEAM”. The 2,000 year focus on the individual Jew was not in vain, and must be continued, but in tandem with the rediscovery and revival of our national selves. Even in galut, tfila has to be b’Tzibbur, at least with the community, is worded in the plural, and how much more so, the content of returning to Israel, our Sanhedrin and Jerusalem, doesn’t let us forget our national needs and true original identity. Our spiritual climax, both on Yom Kippur and Pesach Seder, is “next year in Yerushalayim!”, where only there we can be complete. Under every chuppa, we recall the missing Yerushalayim. The Abudraham even writes that “ימלוך ה’ לעולם אלוקייך ציון”, was a later addition at the end of kedusha, for it’s unthinkable not to mention Yerushalayim in such a central prayer!
Hashem had many individually righteous people in previous generations: Adam, Chanoch, Noach, Metushelach, Shem… But with the revelation of Am Yisrael, He revealed His desire to appear to the world davka via a chosen nation (R. Kook, Orot, p. 104): our mass receiving the Torah at Sinai, our prophets, our mitzvot, our history, and today, the fulfillment of the prophecies of our national redemption, gathering of the exiles and extraordinary G-dly altruism during our wars (ibid, p. 138).
Our national redemption from slavery, our formative 40 years of “gibush” in the desert, and yes, even our receiving the Torah was davka national: “נעשה ונשמע”, “WE will do, and WE will listen”. Many individual religion-founders “claimed” G-dly revelation, but His real disclosure was through the entire nation of Israel, “Was there ever such an idea or [even] a claim, that a[n entire] nation heard G-d speak from amidst the fire…” (Devarim 4, see Rambam, hil. Yesodei HaTorah 8, 1).
P. Bamidbar reminds us of the dual importance of our individual and national identity, but our commemorating the 6 Day War, which called for so much individual sacrifice and climaxed with the cry “Har HaBayit is in our hands!” is also part of the preparation for Kabbalat HaTorah. Especially when today’s western society climaxes the importance of our individualism, it’s davka important to remember: each of us is but one letter in the national Torah. Kabbalists point out that ישרא”ל stands for: י’ש ש’ישים ר’יבוא א’ותיות ל’תורה””, [= “there are 600,000 letters in the Torah”], where even if one letter is missing- it deems the ENTIRE Sefer Torah as non-kosher! But one cannot even imagine that the goal is just MY personal letter. “אם אין אני לי מי לי?! וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני?!” (= “If I’m not for myself, who will be for me?! But if I’m only for myself, what am I worth?!” Avot, 1, 14). “Shall your brothers go to war while you stay here?” (Bamidbar 32, 6).
Let’s remember to “raise YERUSHALAYIM above all of my personal joy (“שמחתי”)” (Tehilim 137, 6). Yes, including lifting my national spirituality and needs, over my individual spirituality and needs, if sometimes I must choose between the two, for the Torah was given to Am Yisrael, not “R. Yisrael”. Shabbat Shalom and Chag Same’ach! Rav Ari Shvat (Chwat)