Keep Your Head
Leadership in times of Corruption
If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, / If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, / But make allowance for their doubting too… (Rudyard Kipling)
Take a census of the whole Israelite company [of fighters] by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. (Numbers 1:2)
The Levites, however, were not recorded among them by their ancestral tribe. (Numbers 26:2)
Rabbi Pinḥas bar Idi said: What is written at the beginning of the book? “Take a census [se’u et rosh] of the entire congregation of the children of Israel” (Numbers 1:2). It is not stated, “Elevate the head,” “promote the head,” but rather se’u et rosh, like a person who says to the executioner: Remove the head of so-and-so. He thereby made an allusion. Why se’u et rosh? If they merit they will ascend to greatness, just as it says: “Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position” (Genesis 40:13). If they do not merit, they will all die, just as it says: “Pharaoh will lift up your head from upon you, and hang you on a tree” (Genesis 40:19). (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:11)
The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur; he was the tribal head of an ancestral house in Midian. (Numbers 1:47)
“Take a census of the whole Israelite company [of fighters] from the age of twenty years up, by their ancestral houses, all Israelite males able to bear arms.” (Numbers 26:2)
Count the whole Israelite community. This count was needed now to inform that although 24,000 had fallen, nevertheless, 600,000 remained, and thus their entry into Eretz Yisroel would be with a complete population. (Kli Yakar on Numbers 26:2)
Numbers (Bamidbar) opens with a command to take a census of the Israelites. We then find another command, in parshat Pinchas, to take a census a second time. How should we think about this doubled census? Kli Yakar sees the second census as a moment of re-assurance; even after a plague, the people should focus on their strength, not their losses. The second census, like the second set of tablets, evokes resilience in the midst of crisis.
A Midrashic teaching from Bamidbar Rabbah, however, offers a more provocative interpretation. The first census is foreboding. Se’u at rosho—literally meaning count or lift the heads—alludes to the carnage to come. It’s ironic—the people are being counted, but not necessarily for good. Their fate depends on how they behave now that they count. Increased attention creates leverage—the counted are exposed to both more upside (greatness) and downside (demise). Note that the person expressing this view is named Rabbi Pinchas, the protagonist of this week’s parasha.
The Torah might have used a different phrase than headcount, but it focuses on counting heads, not bodies. The head suggests leadership. Israelite headcount is a function of the tribal heads. Or is it? One group is set apart from the census, the Levites. They are counted separately using the word pakod, but critically not se’u.
So we have two censuses, two Pinchases, a Rabbi Pinchas and a Biblical Pinchas, and two types of leaders—chieftains and priests. Pinchas is the grandson of Aaron and thus belongs to the tribe of Levi. Pinchas is described as a kohen even though it is obvious from his lineage that he is one.
One purpose of the census relates to military strategy. By knowing your numbers you know your position—where you are strong and weak. But it turns out that the focus on military mobilization, while important, is not enough to take the land. What happens if the people lose connectivity with the mission? What happens if they turn to idols or fall under the cultural influence of the Midianites? What happens, moreover, when it is the chieftains themselves who are the ones going publicly astray? You can’t just count the heads.
The Levites are not counted with everyone else, and yet they provide the insurance policy against mass delusion and mass assimilation. They are not the “heads” of the people, but they are the people’s heart. When the people loses its head, the priests must step in. By separating the priests, the Torah diversifies its models of leadership and authority. The goal is not just to defeat the external enemy, but to establish and stay connected to a sense of “why.” The tribal heads failed. Zimri’s example contrasts with Pinchas’s, as the prince’s failed leadership example contrasts with the rabbi-priest’s.
Commentaries abound on 1) the nature of Pinchas’s violent response to the public transgression of Zimri and Cozbi and 2) its connection to “the covenant of peace” God grants Pinchas. One way to think about is that it is the task of priests to maintain and restore social order, peace between God and society, and peace between conflictual parties. Jewish tradition calls Aaron a rodef shalom, a pursuer of peace, with rodef (pursuer) also having violent overtones. Note, too, that Zimri is from the tribe of Shimon. Shimon and Levi colluded in mass violence against the Shechemites. The priest is not a pacifist, but is a peace-seeker. The deeper point, though, is not that war is or can lead to peace, but that you don’t have to be a fighter to be a fighter. You don’t have to be a martial warrior to win. Pinchas is not counted in the census of those fit for battle but nonetheless engages in a battle of a different kind.
We learn from Pinchas that spiritual leadership counts even though its harder to count and quantify. We learn that leaders without vision and mission are lost, while spiritual leaders can transform themselves into warriors when needed. It’s harder to turn a chief into a priest than a priest into a chief. Pinchas joins the company of Joshua and Caleb as a dissenting voice amidst elite corruption and cynicism. These figures forecast the need for new and varied forms of leadership a world without Moses and Aaron. While those we count and count on can disappoint, salvation will comes from those we overlooked. S’u rosh—lift up your head and do not be fooled by the title “Head of…” Look for the true heads.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins