{"id":46476,"date":"2018-12-26T14:39:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T12:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=46476"},"modified":"2022-07-20T22:28:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T19:28:16","slug":"what-counts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/what-counts\/","title":{"rendered":"What Counts?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[689,374,789],"acf":{"old_id":"46476","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34004,"related_cahpter":"120","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Numbers mean survival, power, blessing. Yet each of us becomes a grain of sand","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our narrative, the census opens up two possibilities. In being counted, the Israelites enter a field of promise and peril, for to count is to say what counts\u2014that is, what fits, what matters, what belongs. It is to become part of everything that exists. But it is also to notice &#8220;the nothing that is.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In writing of &#8220;the mystery of human numbers,&#8221; the essayist Annie Dillard reports a story about Ted Bundy, the serial killer: &#8220;After his arrest, [he] could not comprehend the fuss. What was the big deal? `I mean, there are so many people.&#8217; \u201c* What Bundy is in fact saying is that there are countless people\u2014why should a few more or less count? But to make his point, Bundy makes the futile gesture of counting. In this way, throughout Dillard&#8217;s book, she brings statistics to recount the dizzying relations of the individual with the world she lives in. She cites the figures released by the Hubble space telescope: &#8220;There are maybe nine galaxies for each of us\u2014eighty billion galaxies. Each galaxy harbors at least one hundred billion suns. In our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are four hundred billion suns\u2014give or take 50 percent\u2014or sixty suns for each person alive.&#8221; \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How can an individual count? The children of Abraham are to be like the sand on the seashore, or the stars in the heavens\u2014these are the analogies that God makes in the course of His promises to the patriarchs. Numbers mean survival, power, blessing. But they also carry an undertow of melancholy, as each of us becomes a grain of sand, less than a speck among the immensities of the heaven. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And yet, in the face of that granular reality, the prophet Isaiah cries: &#8220;Lift high your eyes and see: Who created these? He who sends out their host by count, who calls them each by name: because of His great might and vast power, not one fails to appear&#8221; (Isa. 4o:26). A relation in which God names each star as He counts it is a relation of love, of appreciating its singularity. As in English, the Hebrew words for counting and recounting are related: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">li-spor <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">le-sapper<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> have the same root. To tell a tale is to acknowledge the value, the connection, in things. The tale that God tells of that time is a way of relating what counts for Him in that history, what He reads in it\u2014which is precisely their unanswered\/to be answered wilderness desire. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">*Anne Dillard, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the Time Being<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (New York: Knopf, 1999), 21.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>image: GrandeDuc\/shutterstock<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":46479,"id":46479,"title":"shutterstock_392569105","filename":"shutterstock_392569105.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/what-counts\/shutterstock_392569105\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"shutterstock_392569105","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":46476,"date":"2018-12-26 12:43:33","modified":"2018-12-26 12:43:48","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":4961,"height":4961,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105-300x300.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105-768x768.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":768,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105-1024x1024.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":1024,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105.jpg","2048x2048-width":2048,"2048x2048-height":2048,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105-1200x1200.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":1200,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/shutterstock_392569105-420x420.jpg","home_baner-width":420,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"What Counts?","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Numbers mean survival, power, blessing. 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