According to this text, what was the purpose of counting each person in the desert? What does it add to think of taking a census as “lifting up the head” of each person?
Excerpts from On the Pulse of Morning by Maya Angelou
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A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Marked the mastodon, The dinosaur, who left dried tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow, I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness Have lain too long Facedown in ignorance... |
The Rock cries out to us today, You may stand upon me, But do not hide your face…. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you... The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, the Rock, the River, the Tree, your country... Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, into Your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning. |
Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness
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True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are...to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness in both being a part of something, and standing alone when necessary. But in a culture that’s rife with perfectionism and pleasing, and with the erosion of civility, it’s easy to stay quiet, hide in our ideological bunkers, or fit in rather than show up as our true selves and brave the wilderness of uncertainty and criticism. |
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What do these texts add to your discussion of what it means to be “hefker (being open, unattached) like the wilderness” from last week? How do they speak to the idea of counting each person/ lifting each head in the census at the beginning of the book of Bamidbar?
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How might these texts speak to the experience of the Israelites’ wilderness journey from slavery in Egypt to receiving torah at Sinai? How do they speak to your own moments of “braving the wilderness of uncertainty”? What invitation do you hear in “do not hide your face”?
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What hiding places are no longer available to you in the “wilderness” of this last year? What are you being called to face? Where do you seek protection, comfort, courage, or hope?
God Was In This Place & I, I Did Not Know, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner
Each person has a Torah unique to that person, his or her innermost teaching. Some seem to know their Torahs very early in life and speak and sing them in a myriad of ways. Others spend their whole lives stammering, shaping and rehearsing them. Some are long, some are short. Some are intricate and poetic, others are only a few words, and still others can only be spoken through gesture and example. But every soul has a Torah. To hear another say Torah is a precious gift. For each soul, by the time of his or her final hour, the Torah is complete, the teaching done