What can we do? We do what we can.

by puck glass

As a teenager whose doctors struggled to find a diagnosis for several years as i continued to decline, i needed a mantra. i don’t know where the words came from, but i found myself repeating, “Do what you can, for as long as you can, and when you can’t, do the next best thing.”  These words made everything seem okay, like it was natural that there will be a time when “can’t” could or would happen and that “next best” might not be so bad.  “Next best” still has “best” in the wording.  i clung to this mantra.

 Only a few lines into Bamidbar we find a very different kind of mantra:
כָּל יֹצֵא צָבָא— “All who are able to bear arms.” (Num. 1:3)
Again and again the phrase is repeated. This is who counts. Very literally, Moses and Aharon are instructed to take a census clan by clan. If you can fight, then you are counted. If you can’t, you’re left out.

 There is explicit exclusion based on age (no one under twenty) and gender (only men).  Ibn Ezra explains בישראל “In Israel” excludes the mixed multitude who left Egypt. Presumably there is also ageism against older adults.  And of course, there is implicitly an exclusion of disabled people.

 This language is so familiar it’s almost painful. It echoes in the voices of bureaucrats, doctors, and caseworkers of today.  In order to receive SSI, home health care, a mobility device, a diagnosis, or support of any kind, disabled people often have to prove all the things we can’t do.  We have to fail tests; walk too far, see too well, function too independently—and you don’t qualify, even if you’re struggling. The system is not built to help you live, it’s built to measure what you lack. 

 Describing ones life only against a temporarily non-disabled people is exhausting and demoralizing.  i was in my late twenties before a doctor asked me to describe all the things i do in my life, with or without assistance, and if so, how much.  Relatively speaking, it’s the same question as what i can’t do.  She got all the same answers she needed.  But i felt so empowered, for the first time describing the way i live in my body and navigate a world that isn’t always designed for me.  One doctor of the hundreds i have encountered.  The system is not built for us.

 It’s tempting to say that Bamidbar is a system just like our system today. That the Torah, too, is only counting people based on what they can offer in a war; that it sees value only in strength, in physical ability. And that’s not untrue. This census is for organizing a military force. It is a narrow, utilitarian count. It’s not designed to account for everyone.

 But the reality, as always, is more complicated. Not everyone excluded from the census is excluded from the community. Just because someone wasn’t counted for the army doesn’t mean they weren’t there. They weren’t dismissed. They just weren’t part of the number of people going to defend Israel. 

 There’s this strange truth that we sometimes forget: people in the Torah had disabilities of all kinds. For example, people in the Torah had vision issues. (We know Isaac aged into a vision impairment, for example and he’s a patriarch (though that’s a whole ‘nother story…)) There were no glasses in biblical times: no readers; no contacts; no cataract surgery; no lasik. Eyeglasses weren’t invented until the late 1200s, almost the 1300s. That means that for all of biblical history—and most of human history—most people just… couldn’t see very well. 

 The Torah keeps going. Life keeps going. People with blurry vision cooked, raised children, offered sacrifices, followed the cloud by day and fire by night. They participated. Maybe they weren’t reading, but nobody else was either! They had a place.

 There are provisions for the priests with disabilities in Lev 21:16-23.  Again, a profound example of exclusion from the priestly duties, but we know people with disabilities were in our communities because the priests with disabilities ate with the priestly household.

 People with disabilities of all kinds were in the Torah.  People with hearing loss and chronic pain and neurodivergence and limb differences.  How many of them were counted because they could, and were expected to, carry arms?  No way to know. But they were there. They had to be. The world has never been only made up of non-disabled people. Our ancestors made room for the reality of the human body. They had to – because half the camp didn’t see clearly, much of the camp probably didn’t hear well, people got sick, people were born with all the same types of genetic mutations we have and maybe others, and life still happened.

 But then there's the Levites.

 Right in the middle of all this counting—of all this “can you fight, can you bear arms, do you qualify”—we’re told that one tribe is not counted for war. The Levites are not part of the census. Not because they’re not valuable, but because they are valuable simply by being themselves.  There is no basis for exclusion here because there is no count.

 Their job is not to fight. It’s to care for the Tabernacle. To tend to the sacred. To hold the space for holiness. They are not counted for this military census because their bodies are not the main concern, they have – potentially each and every one of them – has real purpose.

 Bamidbar Rabbah 1:12 tells the story of a king who commands his officials to count the troops, but not the guards who stand directly before him. That group is too close to the king, too trusted, too sacred to be included in a general count. So too, says the midrash, God excludes the Levites from the military census not as rejection, but as elevation. They are set apart because they have drawn close. They are to protect the sanctity of the Mishkan, to watch over the Divine dwelling place.

 God reassures Moses: this is not a punishment, not a sign of flaw. Quite the opposite. God says “The Levites are mine” because “anyone who draws Me near, I draw near.” The Levites came forward at the sin of the Golden Calf. They took a stand for the sacred. They proved themselves loyal not with might, not with their physical abilities, but with commitment, and that loyalty is what made them worthy to be entrusted with the holiest task in Israel.

 That is the heart of what Bamidbar is trying to teach us.

 We spend so much time sorting people into “can” and “can’t.” But the Levites provoke a different question entirely. What if we stopped evaluating people by their productivity and started honoring them by their presence? What if we didn’t ask, “Can you bear arms?” but instead asked, “What do you bear?” “What beauty do you hold?” “What holiness do you carry into the world?”

 Because when we build communities based only on who can fight—on who fits the dominant mold—we leave out so much. But when we build communities based on care, on tending the Divine, we make space for everyone.

 God doesn’t need everyone to bear arms.
God needs us to bear witness.
To bear each other.
To bear love.
So what can we do?
We do what we can – and when we can’t, we do the next best thing.

puck glass is a co-founder of Makom Shelanu Congregation in Fort Worth, Texas.  they are a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and love planning worship, teaching at all levels, and are passionate about social justice issues. puck has a background in music and loves to play both in worship and in their spare time.  puck also loves drinking tea, reading books, and playing with their cat, qatsi.