Remember
paint-by-the-numbers sets? I had one
once. It was fun and produced a picture. I seem to remember that it was a seascape
with sailboats. It was something for my
mother to kvell over. Because she
is my mother, after all! But my
mother is an artist. After the
paint-by-numbers sailboats, she bought me a book on drawing, by Jon Gnagy. It taught composition and perspective. Texture and depth. Because I’d produced a passable picture, my
mother thought I might develop in interest in the process of creating art.
The picture of the sailboats wasn’t memorable enough to survive my
childhood. But my mother kept quite of
few of my later, freehand pictures. Perhaps
they weren’t as correct by the numbers as the by-the-numbers
picture. But they were something that
the by-the-numbers picture was not. They
were windows into my soul. They were
snapshots of my feelings at the time, when I had poured out my thoughts and
emotions onto the paper. That’s something
that cannot be captured in a sectioned picture where 1 equals black and 2
equals ochre, and so on. Where the
picture has already been drawn and one only follows strict directions as to
where to put what colour.
Painting by-the-numbers does produce an accurate picture. But it produces an illustration, not art. Nobody’s going to go out of his way to visit a
gallery showing an exhibition of paint-by-the-numbers. In real art, there are degrees of realism. Each person’s taste in art reflects the
amount of realism they prefer. But
pictures that are only realism and not reflective of the mind and heart
of the painter, do not move anybody.
What about those who live life
by-the-numbers? There’s a name for such
people. We call them ‘bean
counters.’ Everybody knows one, either
from personal life or from work. You
probably know more than one, because being a bean counter, reducing to life its
numbers, is a common pitfall.
Bean counters often gravitate toward the business world. There, they are the managers you’ve met who
are only concerned about The Bottom Line. The Profit.
And bean counters get promoted in their companies because business is
about, at the end of the day, making a profit. If you build a business, one of your main aims
is to make a profit and therefore provide your family with a decent or even
lavish material life. Nothing wrong with
that. But if it’s only about the
profit, then you’re missing so much more.
As you know, I’m not down on stuff.
Far from it! Stuff is
good. Give me stuff, and you’ll put a
smile on my face. But life isn’t only
about stuff. It’s about the satisfaction
from realising deeper meaning in what we do. That can be in our working career, in our
relationships, or in our leisure pursuits. Or best still, all three. All of us expend some energy in desiring, and
acquiring, stuff. But if that’s the entire
focus of our lives, then we build unsatisfying lives.
A bean counter is only interested in the numbers. He doesn’t get that, even in business, there
are other values. He does not want to
give up one cent of profit to build a quality product. Or conserve the land. Or ensure the safety and well-being of the
workers. He wants the extra business
that a company’s reputation for quality, or conservation, or happy workers,
will bring. But he regrets every cent
expended in providing those things. If it doesn’t directly increase the bottom
line, it’s wasted. It’s because of bean
counters that we need a complex web of legal safeguards for the environment and
workers’ rights. And even then, the bean
counters will always try to get around them.
As in business, so too in life. The
average consumer will say that he cares about quality, conservation, and
workers’ rights. But he will not spend
one extra cent on a product, to support those values. That’s why cheap goods from China, now
dominate our economy. Whole industries
have folded. The things they made are flooding
into the country from prison factories that feed their profits into the People’s
Liberation Army. At the end of the day,
bean counting provides stuff. But it
does not produce a desirable result.
So how are we to receive Numbers, the
fourth book in the Torah, the book which we begin to read throughout the Jewish
world this Shabbat? Okay, okay, in the
Jewish world we don’t usually call the book, ‘Numbers.’ More often, we use the name ‘Bemidbar.’ So given because its opening words are וידבר יי אל משה במדבר סיני… “So Hashem spoke to Moses in
the wilderness of Sinai…” We therefore
call the book, במדבר,
“In the Wilderness.” The more common title “Numbers” comes from the census that
forms a large part of the content of the book. So whatever title you prefer, it is a
book of numbers.
Moses needed to organise the Israelite
people into a viable army for the goal ahead:
the conquest of the land of Israel.
When you’re trying to organise a ragtag bunch into an army, your first
chore is to make an assessment of your human assets. You count how many people you have; nothing
could be more basic than that! Then you
organise everyone into units and sub-units.
Then you identify the leaders at each echelon. You charge and empower them to turn their
units from groups of men, into effective fighting forces. Then you design and begin to apply a training
regimen. Individual training in the
skills each soldier needs to know. Specialised
training for individuals in their particular jobs. Finally, unit training to teach a group of
individuals to operate and fight as a unit.
It’s quite a process. But it all
begins with the counting: the census.
So by-the-numbers is a step that
cannot possibly be bypassed. But on the
other hand, it is not the end of the story. Mosheh Rabbeinu was no bean
counter. Counting people in order to
place them in an organisational chart, does not make an effective army. And the conquest of Eretz Yisrael was
not just about acquiring the land. It
was about a much deeper quest. It was
about having the laboratory to build a society based on Torah. A society that would be so infused with
Goodness that it would serve as a beacon to the nations.
That beacon was once realised, in
antiquity. Although most Jews today are
not aware of this, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the population of the
Roman Empire were Jews. And Jews by
conversion – pagans who had found Jewish life and faith attractive enough to
become Jews – were a very significant share of those Jews. They very possibly were numerically dominant.
In our day, it is difficult to
picture. The modern state of Israel does
not serve as a beacon to the nations. But
that is not because of any lack of merit on its part. Much of the world will always be duped into
seeing the Israeli Army as Jack the Ripper, and Hamas as Mother Theresa. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. And will turn their heads at the degree, to
which Israel has achieved a diverse society.
That comes closer to the ideal of welcoming and integrating newcomers,
than any other country on the face of the earth. And will ignore the extent to which tiny
Israel jumps to assist other nations in their hour of disaster.
Why is this? Why did the ancient world see the Good in the
people Israel, whilst the contemporary world holds them to nothing but scorn? Have we changed so much? I don’t think so. Perhaps the entire world is far more obsessed
by life by-the-numbers. Perhaps in the
ancient world, the intangibles were of more concern to more people. I’m not dreaming this up. So many great writers and futurists have
painted a picture of a future where life is ever-increasingly, by-the-numbers. Where material comforts become ever
greater. While at the same time, life’s
sublime meaning becomes ever more hidden.
Each one of us feels powerless to
influence the world as a whole. And it
is not our individual responsibility to do so.
But we can, and should learn to transcend by-the-numbers
in our own lives. To build lives around
values that matter. And not just stuff. Moses, the Servant of G-d, did it for the
entire people Israel. Let’s each one of
us, do it for ourselves. Shabbat shalom.
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