The Priestly Blessing is a Math Problem by Evan Hymes

Listen to Evan’s d’var Torah by clicking on that “play” button, or read his words below.

Evan volunteered with Project Power making art, cooking, and dancing with adults who have disabilities. For his centerpieces, he collected art supplies that will be donated to Project Power this week.

By Evan Hymes, Naso 5783

When I started to think about Naso, this week’s Torah portion, it wasn’t that interesting to me. It’s long, and to be honest, it seemed kind of boring, like it had nothing to do with me. I felt like I didn’t really know anything about it, BUT then I discovered a connection with math, and math is something that I do know about.

In math, there are problems with direct solutions like 1+1=2. Simple right? It’s pretty self-explanatory. I also know that not every problem has a direct solution. Sometimes you have to work for it, and it might take multiple steps…AND sometimes 1+1 doesn’t equal 2.

Check it out. Let’s say you have one group of people and you add them to another group of people. How many groups of people do you have now - after you’ve added them together?

Exactly.

Now you have one group of people. 1+1=1.

We could think of them as two groups, but we don’t have to. If we think about the problem differently, we come to a different solution. And if we think about the answer differently, more than one answer could be correct for 1+1.

1+1+1 = 1 “Everybody belongs. We all have a lot in common when we learn and laugh together.” Evan Hymes

There are also problems with no solution.
At least, not a solution anyone has found yet.

I did a little research on that and found Goldbach’s Conjecture, an unsolvable math problem that was asserted in 1742. It’s the theory that every even counting number greater than 2 is equal to the sum of two prime numbers. Christian Goldbach first proposed this conjecture and it’s never been proven or disproven.

Unlike random and boring vows and offerings, this is really cool stuff, right?

It shows that not every problem has a solution we can figure out right now, but lets us know that problems eventually could have a solution that someone could figure out and there could be many ways to get to an answer. And also, the answers could be different and still be right answers, depending on how we look at the problem.

We DO have to get back to Naso, though.

Turns out, there is some pretty obvious math in my parsha and I almost missed it.

Naso opens with a census.
Chapter 4 verse 22 says to take a census of the Gershonites - to count them. Then count the Merarites in verse 29.
So we count groups of people, first one then another.
And different groups have different responsibilities.
1+1+1 and so on.

Now, we could get sidetracked.
I mean, there is a lot of other stuff in this Torah portion.
I get distracted easily by very random things.
Like one minute I could be reading a book and the next minute staring at a paper clip trying to figure out how it works. In Naso, the vows and the offerings could be like paperclips.
Not for me, but maybe you want to figure out how they work.
Don’t get distracted by them!

Keep counting with me.

“I have learning struggles that I will have my whole life. Others have separated me as different or not-able. I also think sometimes that maybe I cannot do what everybody else does. I do some things differently. Inclusion means that we all have something to offer and we need to work together to make things happen.” Evan Hymes

After all of this 1+1+1 and so on, Naso gives us the priestly blessing.
And when Naso introduces the priestly blessing, the Torah isn’t talking about these smaller groups of people anymore,
now the Torah says:
“Speak to Aaron and his sons:
This is how you will bless the people of Israel. Say to them.”
All of them.
The ONE group of Israelites.

It turns out what I know about 1+1+1+1 sometimes equaling 1 is in Naso.
In this week’s Torah portion, there are multiple groups of people, but now they are all combined into one big group.
We call the big group: The People of Israel.
And this one group of people is us.
And I’ll prove it.

But first, we need to know more about the priestly blessing.

The priestly blessing is one of our oldest texts. In 1979 in a burial chamber South of the Old City of Jerusalem archeologists found evidence that this blessing goes at least as far back as the 7th century Before the Common Era (BCE). That's before the Babylonian exile!

Israeli Torah commentator Nehama [Lee-bow-itzs] Leibowitz taught the three sections of the priestly blessing are in an ascending order, starting with a blessing concerned with humanity’s physical needs and then dealing with our spiritual wants, and finally combining both of these factors together and ending with the blessing of peace. She wrote, “This ascending order and increasing surge of blessing is reflected in the language and rhythm."
Studies in Bemidbar, Nehama Leibowitz, p. 67

Bible scholar Rabbi Jacob Milgrom also taught that the structure is important, and he liked numbers, too. He pointed out that there are three words in the first line, five in the second, and seven in the third; there are fifteen consonants in the first line, twenty in the second, and twenty five in the third. He said the structure makes the blessing feel like it's getting bigger and bigger.

I get that, but I think it was the Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin who saw the math that I see.

He pointed out that the priestly blessing was recited over the whole people - all of us - but is said in the second-person singular in Hebrew.
You - one person.
He says that means each person should be granted blessings appropriate for them even though the blessing is for all of the people of Israel.
I think he is saying we are a group AND individuals at the same time.
I think he is saying 1+1 = 1.

Like this:
I have experienced different groups feeling like one group. My mom, sister, and I came to Mount Zion for the Passover seder.
I think there were about at least a couple of hundred people here.
Maybe you were here. Or maybe you were with your family or with friends at your house or at someone else’s house. Maybe some of you traveled to another state or country to celebrate Passover. Of course, there are also Jews who live in other places and they were wherever they were.

BUT - we were all celebrating the same thing.
Even though we weren’t in the same space.
So in that way, we were also individuals and groups that made up one group of people celebrating.
One People.
The People of Israel.

We were also counting the Omer, and it’s like that, too.
Lots of people count the omer by themselves each night, alone even, but still we were doing it - in a way - together, because as a People we were counting the Omer.

On Shavuot we just celebrated receiving the Torah at Sinai, and our tradition teaches that when we received the Torah we were all there.
Like, all of us, individually and together.
I don’t really know what I think about that, but maybe even though we weren’t all there in person, we were all there spiritually.
And on Shavuot we add more plus 1s, we add the Jews who ever lived and who ever will live who don’t even exist in this time. I think that being there standing with everybody is a pretty cool way to think about it.
Like - everyone from the Torah, too.
I mean, if I could, I’d love to stand near Nachshon, the dude who was the first one to walk into the Red Sea. Yeah, I’d like to stand and talk with him.

Anyhow, for a long time the blessing was said by the priests over the community and for the past several hundred years the priestly blessing has been recited by parents and grown ups at the beginning of Shabbat to bring blessing on their children.

So “them” in the priestly blessing means each of us, and it means all of us. Everybody. The people of Israel in all times and all places. Okay, but who is actually blessing the people of Israel? God, right? God is blessing us.
Naso reads, “The Eternal spoke to Moses” and said these are the words Aaron is supposed to use to bless the people of Israel and link God’s name with theirs.

Remember how I said not to get distracted?

Well, I got a little distracted.

I got distracted because the Torah says there should be no image of God, but then in these verses where God says to say this blessing and God gives the words of the blessing, God says God has a face. “May God shine God’s face on you” and stuff like that.
I thought that was interesting, but also confusing.
I learned it doesn’t mean literally seeing God’s face, but that God figuratively shines God’s face or something. The words still confused me. If it doesn’t really mean that, then why say it like that.
Then I started thinking about this God stuff like a math problem, too.
Not a word problem, but just a problem with words.

You’ve heard about pi, right?
3.1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 5 8 9 . . . and so on. Yeah. Okay.
Well, pi to the second power, is basically infinity, right? Except we don’t really know what it is. We can’t count that far. And some people call pi to the second power, pi squared. Or pi to the power of two. Same thing.
It doesn’t matter what we call pi to the second power, but we need to have words for it so we can talk about it. Before we can talk about pi squared, you and I need to figure out how we’re going to talk about pi squared.

That’s just like God.

God, Adonai, Eloheinu . . . people have lots of different names for God. When we see yud hay vav hay we can’t even pronounce it so we just say “Adonai.” But what matters is that we all know we are talking about the same big idea. Like with pi squared and pi to the second power, we’re still talking about the idea of infinity to the power of 2.

One of the stickers that were on the tables at lunch on Shabbat at Evan’s Bar Mitzvah.

Whatever names we use, we’re talking about the same God. The ONE God. Like the “echad” in the Shema. We have so many names for God, and they all add up to one. One and infinity. One and pi to the second power.

So maybe God and the idea of God’s face and God to the second power are all the same thing.
Maybe God is just . . . Infinity.
Squared.

So how did I come to all of this? Well, back to when I first started to think about Naso, I thought I had the longest and most boring Torah portion that had nothing to do with me, BUT my mom made sure I learned Torah, and that I learned about what it means to become a Jewish adult and a part of the Mount Zion community. She had me meet members of the community to study. So in addition to my teachers, rabbis, and cantors at Mount Zion including my tutor Rabbi Amy Ariel, I studied with some men from the congregation about what this all means because I wanted to think about the big picture of being Jewish and about my Torah portion. I met with Eric Lund, who you might know because he’s involved with Mount Zion, and his wife is a well known Jewish photographer in the community. Eric and I talked about God and God’s face and God’s presence in people. Eric said we’re created in the image of God, but God doesn’t have an image . . . and I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I also studied with Andy Fein who is also very involved here at Mount Zion, and he also has a very cool violin shop on Grand Avenue. In learning with Andy I got to thinking about how we all think about God differently and how some of us find God in words and some of us find God in music, and music is also connected to math. Todd Marshall had his bar mitzvah here at Mount Zion as an adult, and before Todd and I even talked about anything, before he even knew me, the first thing he said was that he was proud of me. It felt nice. And surprising. I don’t know, but maybe he didn’t have to know me to be proud of me because we’re part of the same people, so in some sort of way we are family. I also connected with Howie Levine. You might not know who he is, but he grew up at Mount Zion, and I’m sure you’ve met his dad, Charlie, who says “hello” to everybody here at Mount Zion to make them feel welcome and part of the group. After talking to Howie, I kept thinking about how he’s in a really big city and loves to participate in Jewish stuff. About how he doesn’t have a lot of family around him, but he has a lot of Jewish people around him and that helps him stay connected.

Now all of them are part of me and connected to me.

As my Torah teachers, these people are some of my 1+1+1s, and together they’ve helped me become myself and be more myself.

My ONE self.

So NOW, when I think about Naso, I think it’s very interesting - even though I still think it’s really long and some parts are still boring! It turns out Naso is about math and probably no one has ever thought about it quite like I have, and it would be so boring if each person didn’t have a different perspective on everything.
And Naso and the Priestly Blessing actually has A LOT to do with me . . . and A LOT to do with you, too.
Naso is about how everyone is connected and how we are one people.
It’s about how God is a lot of things and God is also One.
It’s about how each of us needs our own blessing and each of us is our own blessing, our own thing we bring to the world.

Judaism says so, and I say so, too.

Shabbat Shalom.

A Note From Rabbi Ariel:
Evan has been my student since the fall of 2021 when he first began to learn the aleph bet. With determination and good humor, frustration and crabbiness, delight and dismay, engagement and disinterest, and always with tenacity, Evan has worked his way through learning Hebrew, trope, Jewish holidays, how to sound the shofar, Jewish values, and Torah with me. His family also joined Mount Zion Temple here in Saint Paul where in addition to learning with his peers in his religious school classes he committed to being a madrich and assisted with a younger class on Sundays and joined the teen choir. Evan also completed a G’milut Chasadim project volunteering with Project Power in Anoka County. As Evan teaches, inclusion is doing something with someone, not for someone, and in that volunteer work he got to know and do art projects and dance and cook with adults who have disabilities. I am honored to have Evan’s permission to share his Torah, the Torah only Evan can bring to the world. Only now, because Evan showed it to me, can I see the God-math in Naso that has been there all along just waiting for Evan to point it out to us.

If you leave loving and supportive comments to Evan, I’ll make sure to get them to him.

Evan, as you celebrate becoming bar mitzvah, I bless you with the continued insight of knowing who you are and what your words are. May you know and may you believe and may you experience that the world is out here wanting to know you and wanting to hear what you have to say. May Pi-to-the-Second Power shine lovingly on you, be gracious to you, and help you find wholeness and completeness in and throughout your life. Mazel tov and BIG BIG love!