Page 1 - Announcements June 8

Parshat Bamidbar/Erev Shavuot June 8, 2019 5 Sivan, 5779
SHABBAT TORAH Rabbi Sacks on Parshat Bamidbar
ARTSCROLL 726
HERTZ 568 Bamidbar begins with a counted the people, but there soldier dies in battle,
census of the Israelites. was Divine anger and 70,000 another will take his place.
SHABBAT HAFTORAH That is why this book is people died. How can this be, if If one person leaves the
ARTSCROLL 1180 known in English as counting is an expression of organization, someone else
HERTZ 582 Numbers. What is the love? The Torah is explicit in can be hired to do his or her

SHAVUOT TORAH significance of this act of saying that taking a census of job.
ARTSCROLL 400/1018 counting? And why here the nation is fraught with risk: Notoriously, too, crowds
HERTZ 290/814 at the beginning of the Then God said to Moses, have the effect of tending to
SIDDUR 966/965 book? Besides which, “When you take a census of make the individual lose his
there have already been the Israelites to count them,
SHAVUOT MAFTIR two previous censuses of each must give to God a or her independent
ARTSCROLL 892 the people and this is the ransom for his life at the time judgment and follow what
HERTZ 696 third within the space of he is counted. Then no plague others are doing. We call
SIDDUR 968 a single year. Surely one will come on them when you this “herd behavior,” and it
would have been number them. (Ex. 30:11-12). sometimes leads to
SHAVUOT HAFTORAH collective madness. In 1841
ARTSCROLL 1228/1229 sufficient. And does The answer to this apparent Charles Mackay published
HERTZ 1027/1032 counting have anything contradiction lies in the phrase his classic study,
SIDDUR 968/969 to do with leadership? the Torah uses to describe the Extraordinary Popular
The place to begin, is to
Times note what appears to be act of counting: se’u et rosh, Delusions And The Madness
a contradiction. On the literally, “lift the head.” This is Of Crowds, which tells of
Mincha 7:00 pm one hand Rashi says that a strange, circumlocutory the South Sea Bubble that
cost thousands their money
expression. Biblical Hebrew
Candle Lighting 8:06 pm the acts of counting in contains many verbs meaning in the 1720s, and the tulip
the Torah are gestures of
Hashkama 8:00 am “to count”: limnot, lifkod, mania in Holland when
love on the part of God:
Youth Minyan 8:30 am Because they (the lispor, lachshov. Why does the fortunes were spent on
single tulip bulbs. The Great
Torah not use these simple
children of Israel) are
Parsha Shiur 8:30 am words, choosing instead the Crashes of 1929 and 2008
dear to Him, God counts
Main 9:00 am them often. He counted roundabout expression, “lift had the same crowd
the heads” of the people? The
psychology.
Beit Midrash 9:15 am them when they were short answer is this: In any
about to leave Egypt. He Another great work, Gustav
Gemara Shiur 7:00 pm counted them after the census, count or roll-call there Le Bon’s The Crowd: A
Mincha 8:00 pm Golden Calf to establish is a tendency to focus on the Study of the Popular Mind
how many were left. And total: the crowd, the multitude, (1895) showed how crowds
Candle Lighting 9:14 pm the mass. Here is a nation of
now that He was about to exercise a “magnetic
Sun. & Mon. cause His presence to 60 million people, or a influence” that transmutes
June 9-10 See Page 4 rest on them (with the company with 100,000 the behavior of individuals
Shavuot Schedule inauguration of the employees or a sports crowd of into a collective “group
Tues., Wed. & Fri. 6:45/7:45 am sanctuary), He counted 60,000. Any total tends to mind.” As he put it, “An
value the group or nation as a
Thurs. 6:35/7:45 am them again. So we learn whole. The larger the total, the individual in a crowd is a
Mincha 8:10 pm that when God initiates a stronger is the army, the more grain of sand amid other
census of the Israelites, it grains of sand, which the
Latest Times for is to show that He loves popular the team, and the wind stirs up at will.” People
Shema/Shemoneh Esrei them. more successful the company. in a crowd become
Counting devalues the
June 8 9:08/10:23 am In contradiction to this, individual and tends to make anonymous. Their
conscience is silenced. They
June 15 9:09/10:24 am centuries later King David him or her replaceable. If one
Next Shabbat Kiddush is provided by Great Neck Synagogue
Naso
Mincha 7:00 pm Flowers for Shavout are sponsored by
Rita Gordonson & Family in memory of Lewis Gordonson z”l
Candle Lighting 8:09 pm