From Where to Who: Parshat Bamidbar 5781

For months after the fire my family and I were simply reacting—finding beds for the kids, shuttling between borrowed spaces, answering the next urgent call. Only recently did I pause long enough to name what this truly is: wilderness.Bamidbar is not just the setting of the Torah’s fourth book; it’s the spiritual terrain that opens whenever life strips away our familiar markers. Naming it matters, because once we say “We’re in the desert,” we can begin to ask what the desert is here to teach.

The very first divine instruction in that book is a census. God doesn’t hand out a roadmap or an architectural plan; instead, God says, “Count every soul.” In the Torah’s math, counting is caring—an act of pastoral attention that refuses to let anyone disappear into the vastness. I’ve seen that played out in real time: friends logging every displaced family to be sure no one slips through the cracks; kids turning hotel corridors into sanctuaries of play; colleagues texting at 2 a.m. so a sleepless night feels less lonely. The geography may be harsh, but the company is tender, and that tenderness is what carries us to the next dawn.

That census mentality reveals the deeper purpose of wilderness. When possessions and routines fall away, hidden gifts surface. The one who never cooked is suddenly coordinating meal trains; the shy neighbor becomes the unofficial chaplain of the temporary housing complex. Pain, unwanted as it is, becomes fuel for agency and generosity—what our sages call turning darkness into light. We are learning that you can wander with direction if your compass is the wellbeing of the people beside you.

Bamidbar therefore invites us to shift our gaze from where we are going to who is going with us. Before the Israelites take a single step toward the Promised Land, they know precisely whom they can count on and who can count on them. That is our task, too. As we keep walking through this season of uncertainty—locally and globally—may we keep taking that sacred census, lifting every soul into visibility. In doing so, we transform wilderness from a place of exile into the very workshop where a holier, sturdier community is forged.