{"id":46549,"date":"2018-12-27T20:39:51","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T18:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=46549"},"modified":"2022-07-22T15:36:46","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T12:36:46","slug":"raise-their-heads-and-spirits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/raise-their-heads-and-spirits\/","title":{"rendered":"Raise Their Heads, And Spirits"},"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":[734,354],"acf":{"old_id":"46549","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33923,"related_cahpter":"121","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The most radical implication of monotheism is - human individuality","content":"<p>The word <em>naso<\/em> is a verb of an extraordinary range of meanings, among them: to lift, to carry, and to forgive. Here though, and elsewhere in the wilderness years, it is used, in conjunction with the phrase <em>et rosh<\/em> (\u201cthe head\u201d) to mean \u201cto count.\u201d This is an odd way of speaking, because biblical Hebrew is not short of other verbs meaning to count, among them <em>limnot, lispor, lifkod,<\/em> and <em>lachshov.<\/em> Why then not use one of these verbs? Why not simply say \u201ccount\u201d instead of \u201clift the head\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>The answer takes us into one of the most revolutionary of all Jewish beliefs. If we are each in the image of God, then every one of us has infinite value. We are each unique. Even genetically identical twins share only approximately 50 percent of their attributes. None of us is substitutable for any other. This may well be the single most important consequence of monotheism. Discovering God, singular and alone, our ancestors discovered the human individual, singular and alone.<\/p>\n<p>This was simply not a value in the ancient world, nor is it one in tyrannical or totalitarian societies today. The ruler might be deemed to have infinite value; so might some of the members of his or her court; but certainly not the masses \u2013 as the word \u201cmass\u201d itself implies. Most people were simply regarded as part of a mass: an army, a work force or a gang of slaves. What mattered was their total number, not their individual lives, their hopes and fears, their loves and dreams.<\/p>\n<p>That is the image we have of Egypt of the Pharaohs. It is how the sages understood the builders of Babel. They said that if a brick fell from the tower they wept. If a worker fell and died, they paid no attention. Almost a hundred million people died in the twentieth century in Stalin\u2019s Russia, Mao\u2019s Communist China and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. We say of such regimes that people became \u201cjust numbers.\u201d That is what the Torah is rejecting as a matter of supreme religious principle. At the very moment when one might be maximally tempted to see people as \u201cjust numbers\u201d \u2013 namely, when taking a census, as here \u2013 the Israelites were commanded to \u201clift people\u2019s heads,\u201d to raise their spirits, to make them feel they counted as individuals, not numbers in a mass, ciphers in a crowd.<\/p>\n<p>From: <em>Lifting Heads (Covenant &amp; Conversation, Naso 5778)<\/em><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":98840,"id":98840,"title":"1chron1-individual","filename":"1chron1-individual.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-world-was-created-for-me\/1chron1-individual\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"1chron1-individual","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":98838,"date":"2021-11-03 12:32:59","modified":"2022-07-22 12:36:42","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1440,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual-300x225.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":225,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual-768x576.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":576,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual-1024x768.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":768,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1152,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1440,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual-1200x900.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":900,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1chron1-individual-560x420.jpg","home_baner-width":560,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Raise Their Heads, And Spirits","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"The most radical implication of monotheism is - 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