Counted with Love: Joyful Teshuvah Before the Torah

1“Hashem spoke to Moshe in the Wilderness of Sinai … Lift up the head of the entire congregation of Bnei Yisrael, by their families, by their fathers' house.”¹ Rashi writes: “Out of His love for them, He counts them every hour. When they left Egypt He counted them; when they fell through the Golden Calf He counted them, to know the number of those remaining; and when He came to rest His Shechinah upon them He counted them. On the first of Nissan the Mishkan was set up, and on the first of Iyar He counted them.”² But why did Hashem need to count them when He came to rest His Shechinah upon them? If the reason was that the Shechinah does not rest upon Bnei Yisrael when they number fewer than twenty-two thousand,³ He had no need to count them for that, since it was plain that they numbered far more.

2aLet us first cite the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on Rashi's phrase “He counts them every hour.” At first glance, Hashem did not count them every hour, but only three times! My holy father explained the phrase through a teaching found in the Zohar, the Shelah and the Tzelach on the verse “And Avraham was old, coming into days”:⁴ Avraham came with all his days, for he had fully rectified every one of them. It is different with someone who has blemished his days. Even once he does teshuvah, those days have still been blemished, and they no longer stand in their proper order, because he was late in rectifying the earlier days.

2bThe remedy for this is teshuvah out of love. Through it a person cleaves to Hashem, “spirit with spirit,” and the order of his days is fully restored as well. For “great is teshuvah, for it reaches up to the Throne of Glory,”⁵ and the Throne of Glory is above time. So everything becomes equally good of its own accord, just as for Hashem, blessed be He, past and future are all one. “Out of His love for them” means: when they do teshuvah out of love, with affection. “He counts them every hour” means: all their hours and days become whole and equally good before Hashem, each in its proper order. Those are his holy words.

3We can explain why Bnei Yisrael were counted through a familiar teaching that the holy sefer Maor VaShemesh quotes in the name of the Chozeh of Lublin, zt"l.⁶ A person who does not do teshuvah before he studies Torah or performs mitzvos is the one of whom the verse says, “But to the wicked God said: What have you to do with recounting My statutes?”⁷ It is different when he has thoughts of teshuvah before he learns. Then he is called a tzaddik, as Chazal said: “If a man betroths a woman on condition that ‘I am a completely righteous man,’ she is betrothed, for perhaps he had thoughts of teshuvah in his heart.”⁸ So he may go on to study the holy Torah. That is the gist of his words. The stories told about the Chozeh of Lublin are well known: he would devote himself intensely to teshuvah before he turned to Torah and mitzvos.

4This explains Chazal's comparison of Bnei Yisrael's journey from Refidim with their arrival at the Wilderness of Sinai: “Just as their arrival at the Wilderness of Sinai was in teshuvah, so their journey from Refidim was in teshuvah.”⁹ But how did Chazal know that they arrived at the Wilderness of Sinai in teshuvah? In light of the Chozeh's teaching, it is clear. Since they were about to receive the Torah, they had to do teshuvah, so that the verse “But to the wicked God said: What have you to do with recounting My statutes?” would not apply to them. From this it was obvious to Chazal that they arrived at Sinai in teshuvah.

5aYet we know that when a person works at teshuvah, taking an honest account of his soul and remembering all the sins he has committed, he can easily fall into sadness. It takes great inner strength to stay joyful. This lets us explain the words spoken just before the giving of the Torah: “And now, if you will truly listen to My voice …”¹⁰ Why does the verse say “and now”? Surely a person must listen to Hashem's voice at every single moment, and not only now. It should have said “and from now on.” We may say that the word hints at teshuvah, as Chazal said: “‘And now’ means nothing other than teshuvah.”¹¹

5bAs they stood before the giving of the Torah, Bnei Yisrael had to do teshuvah, as the Chozeh taught. But so that their teshuvah would not lead them into sadness, Hashem said to them “and now,” meaning this moment exactly: after they had heard His words, “You have seen … and I carried you on eagles' wings,”¹² in which He reminded them of the great miracles of the Exodus. Those words filled them with joy, as they took to heart how greatly the Holy One, blessed be He, loved and cherished them. At that very moment He commanded them to return in teshuvah, for then they would be able to do teshuvah properly, out of joy.

6This lets us understand why Hashem counted them before He came to rest His Shechinah upon them. Chazal said, “The Shechinah rests only amid the joy of a mitzvah”:¹³ it is through the mitzvah that the Shechinah comes to rest. For the mitzvah to be accepted with favor, teshuvah must come first, as the Chozeh taught; but that teshuvah must be done out of joy, as we saw with “and now.” So the Holy One, blessed be He, counted Bnei Yisrael first. When they saw that He counted them again and again because of His great love for them, they joyfully did the teshuvah that must come before doing mitzvos. Their teshuvah was as it should be, so their mitzvos were accepted with favor before Him, and through those mitzvos He rested His Shechinah upon them.

7This also fits what we cited from my holy father, who drew from Rashi's words the idea of teshuvah out of love. The Shechinah came to rest through teshuvah out of love, because Hashem had shown Bnei Yisrael His affection by counting them. In this way we can also give a reason why this parshah is always read before Shavuos: to teach us that before receiving the Torah we must devote ourselves to teshuvah.

8a[There is another way to explain why, according to Rashi, Hashem needed to count Bnei Yisrael when He came to rest His Shechinah upon them.¹⁴ It is based on what the holy sefer Noam Elimelech writes on this verse.¹⁵ These are his words: “It seems that the Torah is teaching a person how to conduct himself. The Torah was given at Sinai so that a person would learn always to be deeply humble and lowly in his own eyes, as Hashem, blessed be He, did when He rejected the tall mountains and chose Mount Sinai, the lowest of them all.¹⁶ That is the meaning of ‘in the Wilderness of Sinai.’ But a person must take care not to become sad, for his great humility may make him fall into sadness, and sadness is a great obstacle to avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. So the Torah warned him to make sure he is always joyful, for the Shechinah does not rest amid sadness.¹⁷ That is the meaning of ‘in the Tent of Meeting,’ ohel mo'ed: he should bring himself into the tent of mo'ed, a word of joy, for mo'ed means a festival.” So far his words.]

8b[This lets us explain Rashi's words. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not rest His Shechinah upon the arrogant.¹⁸ So when He wished to rest His Shechinah upon Bnei Yisrael, they had to work hard to become lowly of spirit and humble. But that very humility could lead them into sadness. So Hashem counted them, to show them how much they matter, in the spirit of “Lift up the head,”¹⁹ and through this they would be privileged to feel joy. This also lets us understand what Chazal said: “Whoever reads Scripture without a melody and studies Mishnah without song, of him the verse says, ‘I too gave them statutes that were not good.’”²⁰ Tosafos, the classic commentators on the Gemara, ask why one must learn with song, and they answer that singing helps a person remember what he learns.²¹ But in light of what we have said, we may answer differently. Before learning, a person must be lowly of spirit, and this can cause sadness, so he must add to his joy and learn with song.]

9So, as we stand at Parshas Bamidbar, whose reading stirs us to teshuvah before receiving the Torah, we recall the well-known account in Ramasayim Tzofim about my holy ancestor, the Rebbe of Lentshna, zt"l.²² On the night of Shavuos he said, in the name of another of my holy ancestors, the Yid HaKadosh, zt"l, that this was not the time to say words of Torah, for derech eretz, decent conduct, came before the Torah.²³ Rather, it was a time to prepare with dread and awe, with trembling and quaking. As he said this, fear and awe fell upon him. In other words, because teshuvah before receiving the Torah is so necessary, he was overcome with great awe. If so, how greatly must we rouse ourselves to teshuvah now! This Shabbos, because of its holiness, let our teshuvah come from joy, for that is how a person reaches wholeness, as we saw with teshuvah out of love, which makes all his hours and days whole. Through this may we be privileged to receive the Torah properly, and through teshuvah may the verse be fulfilled in us: “A redeemer shall come to Zion, and to those in Yaakov who turn back from transgression.”²⁴ Amen, may it be His will.