Keeping In Touch: Naso

This week’s Torah reading concludes the census of the tribe of Levi. When taking a census, everyone - those on the highest spiritual rungs and those on the lowest levels - count equally. No one is given greater priority than anyone else.

This is true, not only because that’s the only way you can make a reckoning, but because there is a fundamental truth being expressed. There is a dimension of equality that permeates our entire people. Intellectually and emotionally, we are different. There are some more creative than others. Others who are smarter, still others who achieve more; some are more sensitive and better able to respond emotionally. Every person has his or own particular quality which is unique.

When looking from the standpoint of these qualities, we cannot say that everyone is equal. On the contrary, what is special is that everyone is not equal, but rather, possesses his or her own dimension of greatness that overshadows others.

All of this, however, applies when focusing on the individual makeup of our personalities. Nevertheless, we each possess a quality that far surpasses our individual selves. Every person contains a soul which is “an actual part of G-d,” unbounded and undefinable as is He Himself. And that is who we really are. When we shed all externals, this soul is what lies at the core of our beings.

At this point in soul, no one person is higher or lower than another. Would it be proper to say that one spark of G-d is superior to another? Taking a census, focuses on - and helps to reveal - this inner G-dly spark. Therefore, in a census, every person is counted equally.