Verse Nu01-02 discussing the required census of the Jewish people states Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their heads;

Rashi explains the two underlined words, family, heads by referencing other verses which illuminate these terms.

Rashi explains that By family means By tribe. Rashi derives this explanation by referencing the immediately following verses which describe census by tribe: Nu01-05:06 states And these are the names of the men that shall stand with you: of Reuben, Elizur the son of Shedeur. Of Simeon, Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai. Rashi could also cite Nu26 which present a census by tribe and subfamily.

Rashi explains the requirement to count by heads by referencing Ex30-12:13 which describes the procedure of counting people by counting the half-dollars that they contribute. The verses explicitly state When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, according to their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto HaShem, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary--the shekel is twenty gerahs--half a shekel for an offering to HaShem. Verse Ex38-26, reviewing this procedure explicitly states a half dollar per head echoing the reference to counting by head in Nu01-02. The full text states a beka a head, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that passed over to them that are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men.

Sermonic points: The verse in Numbers explicitly states count by head. But Rashi thru a cross reference explains that this means count by half dollars. All sermonists expound this the same way: By indirectly counting each person we symbolically affirm that people are a priceless commodity that cannot be counted. Here the Torah explicitly rejects the Malthusian theory that people are economic burdens that consume more than they produce. On the contrary every person can creatively expand the economic pie of assets beyond its fixed boundaries. The more people we produce the more the world is livable.!

Today we explore the hononym method. The hononym method seeks to find a unifying theme to the diverse meanings of a single root. The Hebrew root studied today is Shin Mem Resh, Shamar. We claim the unified meaning is
Professionalism which can mean either
• (Professional) Training
• (Professional) Standards
We literally bring close to a dozen Rashis below: In half the verses we translate Shamar as meaning training while in the other half of the verses we translate Shamar as meaning standards.

In the following verses Rashi translates Shamar as meaning learning or professional training:
• And ye shall learn My commandments, and do them: I am HaShem.
• Learn therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, that, when they hear all these statutes, shall say: 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'
• For if ye shall diligently learn all this commandment which I command you, to do it, to love HaShem your G-d, to walk in all His ways, and to cleave unto Him,
• learn and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the eyes of HaShem thy G-d.
In the following verses Rashi translates Shamar as creating Rabbinical fences or creating professional standards.
• because that Abraham hearkened to My voice, and kept My standards, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.'
• Therefore shall ye keep My standards, that ye do not any of these abominable customs, which were done before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am HaShem your G-d.
• If ye walk in My statutes, and standardize My commandments, and do them;
• And ye shall standardize the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore shall ye observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance for ever.
• They shall therefore standardize My charge, lest they bear sin for it, and die therein, if they profane it: I am HaShem who sanctify them.

In verse Nu03-07a Rashi explicitly combines both meanings: Here Shamar means Professional appointment and refers both to the standards of Temple service as well as to leaerning the Temple service: And they [the Levites] shall learn the standards of his professional appointment, and the standards of the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, to do the service of the tabernacle.

About two dozen Rashis focus on the multi-verse sentence, That is, one sentence that spans several verses. Nu01-02:04 is a multi-verse sentence and states as follows Take you the count of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their polls; from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: ye shall number them by their hosts, even thou and Aaron. And with you there shall be a man of every tribe, every one head of his fathers' house. By focusing on the underlined words we see the simple sentence summary: You, and with you, the tribal elders, count, the 20+ year olds, eligible for military service.

Note the underlined aligned differences in the following two verses, each of which discusses requirements of census:
• Israelite:
  • from twenty years old and upward,
  • all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: ...
• Levite:
  • Number the children of Levi by their fathers' houses, by their families;
  • every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them.'

Today we ask the database query: How do the censuses of Nu02 and Nu26 compare and what lessons can be learned from the comparison? Today's database query can equally be understood as an application of the spreadsheet method.

The table below shows that good neighbors have positive influence. Judah, Issacar and Zevulun lived in the Eastern side of the camp. They all positively influenced each other. Although the overall census went down 0.3%, the Eastern camp census went up 8%.

We are only touching the basic idea in this query. We could follow Rashi and show how each of the people in the Eastern camp were known for their Torah scholarship. Rashi further points out that they lived near Moses. We could also follow Rav Hirsch and analyze census increase / decreases on all sides. We however suffice with the spreadsheet below which justifies the Rashi commment that Good neighbors have positive influence.

Sermonic points: Todays Rashi is already sermonic - Good neighborhoods have positive influence!

Recall that originally the First Born served as priests. After the sin of the Golden calf the first born were replaced by the Levites. The Bible at Nu03-39 tells us that there were 22,000 Levites. But if we subtotal all the Levite tribes we find 22,300 Levites. Rashi explains that there were in fact 22,000 non-first-born levites, since the 300 first born levites replaced themselves. There were 22,273 first born. Hence the 22,000 Levites could replace all but 273 first born. These 273 first born had to be redeemed with five dollars per person.

These details are summarized in the spreadsheet below. This is a good example of the spreadsheet method since Rashi literally uses a spreadsheet structure to illuminate the verses. Note particularly the column labeled Source. Here each comment is either a verse or some derived mathematical computation. These derived mathematical computations are in fact the contents of the Rashi comments. The spreadsheet below simply makes the Rashis clearer and more obvious.

Line Item	Count of	Verse	Count	Source
Line 1	Gershon	Nu03-22	7,600	Verse
Line 2	Kehath	Nu03-28	5,600	Verse
Line 3	Merari	Nu03-33	6,200	Verse
Line 4	All Levites	'	22,300	Total #1-#3
Line 5	All [Non 1stBorn] Levites: Verse Subtotal	Nu03-39b	22,000	Verse
Line 6	1st Born Levites	'	300	Inference: Line #4 - #5
Line 7	1st Born Israelites	Nu03-43	22,273	Verse
Line 8	Unpaired 1st Born-Levite	Nu03-46a	273	Verse: Line #7 - #5