{"id":46299,"date":"2018-12-23T22:58:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T20:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=46299"},"modified":"2022-07-17T15:33:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T12:33:53","slug":"belonging-is-more-profound-than-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/belonging-is-more-profound-than-being\/","title":{"rendered":"Belonging Is More Profound Than Being"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 1973, in his Pulitzer-Prize winning history, <\/span>The Americans: The Democratic Experience<\/span><\/i>, Daniel Boorstin incorporated a beautiful teaching that essentially contrasted modern Americans with the Children of Israel in Numbers, chapter 1. Boorstin appreciated the delightfully democratic impulse behind our constant counting: X percent of Americans belong here! Do this! Believe that! Americans rejected the Old World\u2019s \u201cinvidious distinctions,\u201d rooted in class snobbery, Boorstin explained. \u201cNumbers were neutral.\u201d The \u201cnumbering of people (one person, one vote)\u201d symbolized democratic equality.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an objective historian assessing pros and cons, Boorstin also identified the damage \u201cstatistical communities\u201d caused. Obsessively slotting individuals into categories made membership so passive the relationship risked becoming meaningless. \u00a0These \u201csupermarket of statistics\u201d offered no \u201cmoral guide.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Having coined the phrase \u201cpseudo-events\u201d to identify PR stunts staged just to get media coverage, Boorstin essentially, presciently, warned against pseudo-communities too. \u00a0Decades later, our lives are filled with superficial associations: Facebook \u201cfriends\u201d we\u2019ve never met, trends that define us simply by clicking or \u201cliking.\u201d We don\u2019t even notice that a \u201cvirtual community\u201d is an oxymoron \u2013 even as many American Jews seek a Jewish community with no red lines, no meaningful boundaries or definitions.<\/span><\/p>\n

By contrast, unlike our hollowed-out communities, <\/span>Numbers <\/span><\/i>begins with a powerful moral process of community-building. The children of Israel are not mere numbers. They are not just counted passively, logged into a statistical community. They \u2013 we \u2013 are challenged to count, because in this community you only count by standing up for one another.<\/span><\/p>\n

Far beyond being tabulated in a census, and even more profound than ponying up a shekel to be counted, Verse 45 proclaims the children of Israel \u201cwere counted according to their fathers’ houses, from twenty years and upward, all who were fit to go out to the army.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Those who contribute count: creating meaningful communities not statistical communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Boorstin and <\/span>Bamidbar<\/span><\/i> help correct the common mistranslation of verse 2, which is often rendered as: \u201ctake the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel.\u201d \u00a0The Hebrew proclaims: \u201cSe\u2019u et rosh kol eidat b\u2019nai yisrael<\/em>.\u201d The first word — \u201cSin-Aleph-Vav <\/em>— is related to carrying, lifting up, leading, marrying \u2013 transcending through committing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Torah \u2013 and Reb Boorstin — teach that belonging is more profound than being. True belonging entails investing, embracing, truly joining. From that I-thou relationship \u2013 or those relationships with others and with shared ideals \u2013 we catapult toward becoming better people and bettering the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":104621,"id":104621,"title":"-6276db5b1c9b7--6276db5b1c9caex17-community team.png","filename":"6276db5b1c9b7-6276db5b1c9caex17-community-team.png.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/10\/6276db5b1c9b7-6276db5b1c9caex17-community-team.png.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/learning-to-work-together\/6276db5b1c9b7-6276db5b1c9caex17-community-team-png\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"6276db5b1c9b7-6276db5b1c9caex17-community-team-png","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":41937,"date":"2022-05-07 20:49:31","modified":"2022-07-17 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