Counting Every Soul: We Are Not Giving Up

This week we open the Book of Numbers—Sefer Bemidbar—literally “in the wilderness.” It’s a book that begins with a census. Every person counted, every name recorded. Every soul matters. And this Shabbat, we also mark a number that breaks our hearts: six hundred days since Hamas massacred our people on October 7, 2023. Six hundred days since fifty-eight of our beloveds were kidnapped into captivity in Gaza. Six hundred days of rage and agony. And somehow, still, love.

I don’t know how else to describe it—it is unfathomable. I imagine your heart, like mine, feels scattered in a thousand directions. And I hope you’ll allow all of it to be present—grief, love, birthdays, survival, memory—because only when we let it all in can we truly build a community worth fighting for. We grieve. We celebrate. We scream. We remember.

And we count.

Bemidbar begins not only with the name of a place, but with a command: “Take a census… every one by name, head by head.” The Torah demands that we see each person, not as a number, but as a name, a soul, a universe. That’s what makes this week’s parasha feel so excruciatingly relevant. For six hundred days, we have fought so that fifty-eight names will not be forgotten. For six hundred days, their families have begged the world to see them. And we must continue to say: We see you. We count you. We will not stop.

The desert, our ancestors’ wilderness, was never simple. Sometimes we remember it as a place of fierce love. “I remember the love of your youth,” God says through the Prophet Jeremiah, “your love when you followed Me into the wilderness (Jer. 2:2)”—like a honeymoon. And sometimes we recall the desert as a time of failure, complaint, and wandering. “For forty years I quarreled with that generation, (Ps. 95:10)” the Psalmist laments. Both memories are true. That’s what becoming a People looks like: contradiction, struggle, passion, and perseverance.

And that’s where we are now. Watching Israel’s inner political turmoil, we know we are a People still becoming. Still wandering. Still figuring it out. Still arguing. But also still showing up. Still screaming. Still singing. Still loving.

In the desert, our ancestors camped tribe by tribe, surrounding the Mishkan (Num. 2:2), the center of holiness, with every person in their place. The Midrash tells us they knew how to camp together because of how they stood together when Jacob died (Bamidbar Rabbah 2:8)—each tribe united by something bigger than ego, something sacred. Today, we must ask: is our camp whole? Are we still standing together?

And if not, what will it take?

Six hundred days is a long time to feel abandoned. And that’s what so many hostage families feel. Abandoned by their own leaders. Abandoned by the world. And so I ask: will we allow them to feel abandoned by us?

I haven’t let myself speak it out loud these many months—but today I must: What if it were my child? What if it were yours? What would we do?

We would scream. We would not stop. And so we must not stop.

That is why Yuval Raphael stood on the Eurovision stage and cried out with elegance and passion. That is why Alon Ohel’s piano in Hostage Square still plays while he suffers underground. That is why we march, why we pray, why we write and call and weep and hope. That is why we say to the Pope, to the President, to our rabbis, to our friends and neighbors and anyone who will listen: Bring them home. Now.

I know Bemidbar is bigger than this pain. I know it contains stories and lessons beyond the news cycle. But I also know that Torah is not frozen in the past. It is alive here, now. And right now, our Torah cries out: Count them. See them. Remember them. Fight for them.

Zionism means many things. But at its core, it is this: “the right to live and die on our own terms,” as articulated by Achad Ha’Am, Asher Ginsberg. Some of our beloved hostages are already gone from this world. May they at least be buried in freedom, with dignity, with love. Some are still alive, and we owe them more than prayer—we owe them action.

We tune in to Torah hoping for inspiration. So here it is: the desert was brutal, but it was never the end of the story. It was where we became a nation. Where we learned how to be holy. Where we learned how to walk together.

We are still learning.

And so on this 600th day, I ask you—gently, fiercely, as family—feel this pain as your own. Act as if these 58 beloveds are yours. Because in truth, they are. None of our family should be abandoned. None of our family should feel alone. If we are truly a people, if we are truly a nation, then we do what families do: we fight for each other. We show up. We stay loud.

This isn’t just an invitation. It’s an obligation. Use every human way you have to bring this agony back to the center of the world’s attention.

And say it with me, softly or at the top of your lungs—but say it:

Bring them home now. Bring them home now. Bring them home now.

We are still counting.
We are still a people.
And we are not giving up.