Rabbi Howard Morrison

This past Monday was entitled "National paperclips day." Whenever I think of paperclips, I remember a tremendous act of solidarity, education, and inspiration performed by students and teachers from a high school in Whitwell, Tennessee. In order for a school of Christian teenagers to identify with the horrors of the Shoah, the school community endeavored to collect six million paperclips. By the end of the project, they collected millions more than that. All the paper clips received were meticulously counted.

Parshat Naso begins where Parshat B'Midbar left off, a counting of the tribes of Israel and the Levitical groups. Parshat Naso ends with a counting of the exact same dedication gifts brought by the twelve tribes of Israel over a twelve-day period.

A week ago, we completed counting forty-nine days, seven complete weeks, which connected the Festivals of Passover and Shavuot - from physical freedom to receiving heavenly Torah; from courtship with God to marriage with God; from the planting of a Spring harvest to the ripening of the first fruits.

The lessons of Whitwell, Naso, and the Festival season all share the idea of not merely counting, but counting that which is truly important.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Howard Morrison