There are multiple places in the Torah where God commands Moses and Aaron to take a census. There is a clear emphasis placed on the idea of counting and clarifying which tribes are present and accountable to the laws of Moses, and who bears responsibility for the destiny of the Israelite people. However, the verbiage used in Hebrew to ordain a census makes it clear that this process is about more than counting! Our parsha bears the name of the command – Nasso (נשא) – which (despite common English translations as “count”) conveys to us that there is a deeper meaning.
Typically, we read that Numbers 4:22 is translated as the following: “Take a census of the Gershonites also, by their ancestral house and by their clans.” However, based on the range of meaning for the root of the word Nasso, one could also translate it to mean “Lift up the heads of the Gershonites, by their ancestral house and by their clans.” Lift up the heads? What, so they’re easier to see and count? I don’t think so!
The root of the word Nasso takes many forms in Biblical, Rabbinic, and Modern Hebrew. One familiar place we encounter it is at the wedding ceremony, also known as Nissuin. Nissuin can mean “Elevation”; when two people get married, it is as if they are lifting each other up to new life. This means that, rather than simply asking us to count them, the Torah is asking us to acknowledge and elevate the Gershonites (or any other group of which we take a census) to a new status among the people of Israel and in reference and reverence to God’s law!
In Parashat Nasso, this “elevation” is reserved for the Gershonites, however. Later, in Numbers 6, we encounter one of the most famous and enduring blessings: Birkat Kohanim (The Priestly Blessing). The active verb in the last line of this three-part blessing is our connection! In Hebrew, the line appears like this: יִשָּׂ֨א יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃. That first word, Yisa, again shares that same root as Nasso. Literally, this line can be translated as “God shall lift up God’s face to you and grant you peace.”
The inclusion of this blessing within the Parsha, which is so rooted in the verb Nasso, seems to be no accident! It demonstrates to us that we, along with the Gershonites, are to be elevated from a place of obscurity and into God’s sightline. May we all be lifted up by and toward God, and may each of us feel counted!
You can hear my favorite rendition of the Priestly Blessing (Y’varechcha) by songwriter Jacob Spike Kraus!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfY7X2EWRDs