Hillel said, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” Pirke Avot 2:4
I am preaching to the choir. You are the ones who are here. And you count.
Recently I went to two separate meetings. The first, back in December was a Chicago Board of Rabbis meeting where the JUF staff tasked with the upcoming population survey came to solicit our advice about the questions and the structure of what we need to know. We explained that some words are really important. It raises really important questions :
- Who is a Jew?
- Who is a member?
- Who is affiliated?
- What is a family?
- Who counts?
We know that the demographics are changing. In the last population survey JUF (Jewish United Fund) explained that there are 6000 unaffiliated Jews in the Fox River Valley. Jews who don’t belong to synagogues or other Jewish institutions. I was tasked with finding them and making CKI attractive enough that they would want to join, to become members. I called JUF to talk to them about their methodology. How did they derive this number. They extrapolated that from 6 phone calls they made into the Fox River Valley. Six. I fault the methodology but cherish the money that JUF has sunk into the region based on that number. AT CKI we are grateful for many JUF grants that we have received at CKI since I have been here. Education grants, safety and security grants, and the latest an “inclusion” grant to make CKI more accessible.
We count.
In the new study we need to ask tough questions. How do we account for adult children living at home? In our congregation we have at least four families with that configuration. This is a new national trend. How do we count households where the children are being raised as Jews but both parents aren’t Jewish? Or Jewish families that don’t affiliate at all? Or answer the question that yes they belong, because they went to High Holiday services or a shiva minyan or eat lox and bagels on Sunday morning.? What do we do with individuals where there are two religions concurrent, like Jew-Bus? Who is entitled to services? Who is a member?
Who counts?
The text for today’s extra reading says that every one must pay a half shekel to be counted. Not any more for the rich. Nor less for the poor. That barrier of entry is deliberately low so that everyone counts. Everyone. OK—in this case men of 20 years of age and older. In order to count for military service.
However, also in the parsha, and just ahead of next week’s Women of the Wall service, the rest of our text this morning clearly states that offerings of the heart come from everyone, men AND woman whose heart so desires. And women were some of the skilled artisans who helped build the mishkan, the tabernacle. Vayakhel—Moses gathered them, all of them together, to build the mishkan. It took all of them gathered together and working together. They counted. They built the building and in the process, they built community.
I also was pulled into a meeting about the local impacts of the upcoming federal census. If any of you have done genealogy you know how important census records are in tracing your roots. More importantly, counting accurately helps cities and regions get much needed federal dollars, monies for school systems and libraries, police and fire coverage, roads , infrastructure. It helps with congressional redistricting.
Here are the numbers for Elgin according to the 2010 US Census: There are 108,000 residents of Elgin. Elgin is 7.4% African American, 5.4% Asian, 43% Hispanic, 1.4% Native American, 3.5% Multi-racial, and the rest Caucasian. https://www.cityofelgin.org/DocumentCenter/View/16168/2010-Census-Elgin-Demographic-Profile?bidId=
However, the numbers of Hispanics I usually hear from official sources are 47% or 52%. What makes the difference? We know that there is a population of undocumented immigrants. We know that there is fear in the immigrant population about the upcoming census. One of the ways the library is asking for help is by spreading the word from the faith communities. Are there problems with the upcoming census form? You bet.
Proposed questions:
- Age, asked since 1790
- Citizenship, asked since 1820
Hispanic Origin, asked since 1970 - Race, asked since 1790
Relationship, asked since 1880 (about person 1 to person 2) - Sex, asked since 1790
- Tenure asked since 1880 (owner, renter)
After the “official” questions there are more questions about what I might call American culture.
“Every part of the 2020 Census is grounded in research,” Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said. “An accurate and complete census relies on U.S. households responding to the 2020 Census online, by phone or by mail, and the communications campaign is key to achieving that.”
So we have multiple ways of completing the census—by phone, by mail or online. But only do it once! (OK—we are in Chicagoland, vote early and often. Just kidding) We, as a Jewish community, tend to fill out the census form. But what about that fear:
“The analysis revealed five barriers that might prevent people from participating in the census: concerns about data privacy and confidentiality, fear of repercussions, distrust in all levels of government, feeling that it doesn’t matter if you are counted, and belief that completing the census might not benefit you personally.”
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/2020-census-cbams.html
The biggest fear seems to be around the citizenship question. That question, which was first asked in the 1820 census is now making its way through the courts. If you say you are not a citizen is it possible that ICE may come and find you? Can you be deported for honestly filling out a census survey?
I had hoped to be able to say something else this morning. We know that the Talmud teaches that 36 times in the Torah it says that we should take care of the widow, the orphan and the stranger in our gates. The Talmud, known for its detailed citations didn’t give us the list of 36. Instead it argues with itself that it is actually 46 times. So I built the list. I went back to it, hoping that when the Israelites conducted its census it counted the sojourners. I couldn’t find it. It is one of the dangers in what is called “prooftexting.” I did find references that both King David and King Solomon counted foreign born workers—in order to pay them accurately.
- I Chronicles 22:1-2: “And David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God.”
- II Chronicles 2:17-18: “And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the numbering as David his father had numbered them; and they were found a hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred. And he set threescore and ten thousand of them to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountains, and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people at work.”
So counting is important—for making sure we have enough people for a minyan, for paying our workers correctly, for figuring out our resources for a military campaign, for so much more.
Yet there is a spiritual component to it is as well. G-d says to Moses we are not just counting people, we are “raising their heads”, the same root as to have an aliyah. It’s a going up, to a higher spiritual plane.
As the Lubevitcher Rebbe, whose biography the CKI book group just finished reading, taught, “When a census is taken, the count will include scholars and boors, professionals and vagabonds, philanthropists and misers, saints and criminals. Yet each counts for no more and no less than one in the total number. The count reflects only the one quality they all share equally: the fact that each is an individual human being..
But it is not, as he explained, an expression of the lowest common denominator. Rather, in G-d’s eyes, a census is a reflection of the highest common denominator. “As G‑d sees it, the soul of man is a spark of His own fire—a spark with the potential to reflect the infinite goodness and perfection of its source. Human life is the endeavor to realize what is implicit in this spark. Indeed, a person may lead a full, accomplished and righteous life, and barely scratch the surface of the infinitude of his or her soul. Another person may blunder for a lifetime in darkness and iniquity, and then, in a moment of self-discovery, fan their divine spark into roaring flame. So when G‑d instructs that we be counted, it is an expression of our highest common denominator. On the divine census sheet, our differences are transcended to reveal the simple fact of our being—a fact which expresses what is best in us, and from which stems all that is good in us.” https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3728281/jewish/Four-Quick-Insights-from-the-Rebbe-on-the-Parshah-Pinchas.htm
We count.
There is one more thing about this counting. It is about building community.
We began a conversation last night. Counting members is much more than about who paid synagogue dues…but that is important too. It is about belonging to a community. So my question for you this morning, continuing on from last night’s conversation is what is it that you want or need in a community. Each of you have chosen to be here. Have chosen to be counted. So why are you here?
- The family that we have chosen
- Support in good times…and bad—and in good again.
- Safety and protection
- Making life easier
- A sense of accountability
- A connection with the Divine
- A connection with history and tradition and ancestors
- It is part of the covenant. I will be here. I will be present.
Let us be counted and let us build this community, together.