Parshas Nasso 5782
“GET YOUR HEADS DOWN!”
I vividly remember my grandfather relating how he belted these words to anyone within earshot as bombs began to fall on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. It stands out in part because it revealed a side of him I never really knew and seemed at odds with the smiling, jovial personality he’d always been around me. But with shrapnel whizzing by overhead, barking life-saving instructions is a necessary move.
I think about those words as the Torah describes the exact opposite at the beginning of Parshas Nasso. The term used by Hashem to instruct Moshe to take a census of the B’nei Gershon is “Nasso es rosh,” literally, “Lift the head.” Indeed, the term nesius rosh—lifting the head—is always the term the Torah uses for counting, whether the various branches of Shevet Levi, or the Jewish People as a whole.
If keeping your head down is the obvious human response to saving yourself from possible danger, then asking that heads be lifted may well be suggesting that each person counted willingly put himself in harm’s way. True, no bombs were being dropped on the Jewish People as Moshe organized the census. Yet the reality that exposing your head leaves you vulnerable—if only theoretically—is present just the same and is symbolic of an attitude the Torah expects us to adopt.
Parshas Nasso focuses on counting the leadership, the three families that comprise the tribe of Levi who serve as the educators of the nation and help manage the Mishkan. And in saying that the ranks are counted through a lifting of the heads, the Torah makes a subtle reminder about what it means to serve as a leader. Namely, that you’re making yourself vulnerable and exposing yourself to danger.
It is a common gripe at the rabbinic conferences that I attend that there just doesn’t seem to be any way to make everyone happy. Every policy you adopt, every program you offer, every statement you make will bring a smile to one face and a frown to another. Behind every person you make happy is another you’ve angered. Every stance that some applaud will be lambasted by others. It’s a frustrating proposition, yet with Nasso, the Torah is reminding us that that’s just how it is. If you want to be counted amongst the difference makers, know that you’re leaving yourself exposed. Bombs will burst and shrapnel will fly. The answer is not to keep your head down, but to accept the inherent hazards in keeping it held high.
The Torah, of course, does not stop at counting the leaders of the nation. Sefer Bamidbar delivers a comprehensive reckoning of the entire nation, not only the elite. Which means that the need to accept the realities of lifting one’s head and being exposed to attack is not only for the clear leaders, but for everyone who wants to count. To keep one’s head down is to go uncounted; it is to disappear entirely. To matter in any capacity, everyone needs to come to terms with the impact their decisions will have on others, and that by necessity they will please some and anger others.
This is not to say that we are all meant to go through life with our elbows out, emboldened by the Torah having condoned behavior that upsets others. In a million different ways halacha demands that we be sensitive to those around us and do everything in our power to lessen the pain of our fellow man. There does, however, come a point where attempting to make everyone happy is counterproductive. Far worse than a benign exercise in futility, we cripple our own ability to make any meaningful difference as we dodge every contrary word, every critical facebook post, and every other bit of shrapnel that flies around in public.
Keeping your head down is safe, but if we want to count, the Torah insists we lift our heads up.