A Part of a Whole - Parshat Ki Tissa
Usually the easiest way to count is by using whole numbers…1,2,3…
Other manners are possible but not quite as easy.
Yet in this week's portion, Parshat Ki Tissa, there is a commandment to count the people by using half-shekels1, half a coin instead of a full coin. I agree that it is not a difficult manner in which to count people - just multiply by two and you have your sum. But why go through this unusual manner for counting the people?
Rabbi Moshe Alshich, in his commentary on the Torah, brings the following interpretation: This method comes to teach the concept that there is unity in the people. No one should feel that he is fully separate from his friend. Only through joining with his friend can he truly become whole.2
This thought has so many aspects to it. It is deep and it is celestial. It covers Man's constant search for social activity and being in need of others to reach his full meaning. In that way it is deep. It is celestial in that it describes Man's ability to look out one for another as if the other were truly a part of him. Here often we can see the heights to which Man can reach in his care for others, and often does.
Man is not whole because he needs the other to become whole. He needs the Other to complete him. He also needs to help to complete the other.
To give and to receive. We need to be part of a community to give to it when we can and to receive from it when we need.
It is a humbling idea and it is likewise empowering. It is humbling for the powerful to realize that even they are not omnipotent and still need other people to become whole. It is empowering for the weak, sick and infirmed to know that even in their weakness they have significance to create wholeness.
This interconnectedness of a people or even the entire human race is beautifully put by John Donne in his poem, 'No Man is an Island'.
"No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee."3
We are a part of a greater whole - that is who we are. In depth, in height, in humility and in empowerment, let us celebrate and realize our unity.
1. Shemot 30:13
2. This is very similar to a thought of Viktor Frankl who stated that one becomes whole through his activities on behalf of the Other.
3. Donne, Meditation XVII
Have A Great Shabbat!
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