While Standing (Six Feet Apart) on One Foot
March 31, 2020
We have all heard the expression ‘Numbers don’t lie.’ As the US passes the 3,000 dead milestone and has now officially passed the death toll from 9/11 it is important to understand that the numbers do lie. Yes, numbers lie.
Numbers tell us a thing.
These people were not ‘things.’ They were flesh-and-blood people with dreams, aspirations, hopes, skills, families, lives that had meaning.
These were no meaningless statistical blips.
We are created to somehow camouflage the off-putting and the uncomfortable. Numbers allow us to do exactly that. After all, you never have to look the family of a number in the face and give them comfort. You never have to hold the hand of a number as it is dying. You never have to sit shiva for a number. You never have to listen to a number cry.
But you have to do that for people. And it hurts. A lot.
Jewish tradition has evolved to not count people. When the census in the desert was taken people were not counted. All the men over 20 years old were told to bring a 1/2 shekel to the priest to be counted. In 2 Samuel 24, there is a story of David’s general, Yoav, who counted his soldiers. Let’s just say God and David were not pleased. To this day, Jews don’t count people. When we have to know how many people are present we say, ‘not one, not two, not three…’ It may be a legal fiction but it reminds us that counting is often a way to dehumanize someone. Numbers lie and numbers lie to us.
The numbers out of this pandemic are lies: There are not 3,000,000 claims for unemployment. There are 3,000,000 people who have no jobs. There are not 3,000 deaths in the US from this virus. There are 3,000 grieving families. The numbers lie. Maybe that’s why they are called numbers – they numb us into robotic utterances of statistics.
We will hear lots of numbers in the next few weeks. The Hebrew word for number is ‘mispar’ – and the root of the word means ‘story.’ Each number you see is a story. We need to keep it that way. Let’s each summon whatever resources we have in our souls to make sure they are counted as real people.
