Parashat Emor: Counting–The Omer, Singing Competitions,
and Confidence in College Presidents
(delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on May 18, 2024)
We are in the midst of the period of the counting of the Omer, which helps us tie the Passover holy days with their reminder of our getting out of Egypt and oppression to Shavuot, on which we forged our covenant with G!d, enabling us to move forward with clarity and purpose toward our Promised Land. The mitzvah comes from today’s Torah reading. We read:[1] וּסְפַרְתֶּ֤ם לָכֶם֙ מִמׇּחֳרַ֣ת הַשַּׁבָּ֔ת מִיּוֹם֙ הֲבִ֣יאֲכֶ֔ם אֶת־עֹ֖מֶר הַתְּנוּפָ֑ה שֶׁ֥בַע שַׁבָּת֖וֹת תְּמִימֹ֥ת תִּהְיֶֽינָה׃ “From the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete.”
Now, one of the first things we teach children is how to count. We play hide-and-seek and have them count to ten while we hide. We watch spaceships take off and follow the count down. Counting votes precisely, whether on The Voice or American Idol is so important. Much hangs on its accuracy and timeliness. I doubt that any other animals know how to count. But counting is part of what makes us human.
So let us talk about the counting in another contest. The Eurovision final in Malmo, Sweden, was held this past week. If you aren’t familiar with Eurovision, it’s an international song competition organized annually by the European Broadcasting Union. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed live and transmitted to national broadcasters via the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries’ songs to determine a winner. The group of European public broadcasters includes some countries that are not part of Europe, like Australia and Israel. Eurovision is huge in Europe as a matter of national pride. It has also become a gay icon event internationally. This year’s contest broke all sorts of records, reaching over 163 million people, with votes cast from 156 countries.
Israel has won four times–in 1978 with “A-ba-ni-bi” (by Nurit Hirsh and Ehud Manor), 1979 with “Hallelujah” (by Kobi Oshrat and Shimrit Orr), 1998 with “Diva” (by Tzvika Pik and Yoav Ginai–and sung by the great Israeli trans performer Dana International), and 2018 with “Toy” (by Doron Medalie, Stav Berger, and Jack White).
This year’s song, “Hurricane” was written by Avi Ohayon, Keren Peles, and Stav Berger) and reflected the Israeli national mood—a somber ballad, beautifully sung by an incredible talent, Eden Golan— even though, by Eurovision rules, the lyricists were barred from making overt reference to any geopolitical events. Indeed, the lyrics were changed to accommodate Eurovision.
Inside the venue, hecklers booed Eden throughout her performance. Outside the venue, thousands rallied against Israel’s inclusion. They argued that just as Russia was excluded as punishment for its aggression against Ukraine, so, too, should Israel be excluded. Of course, Israel was the victim of aggression, like Ukraine and unlike Russia and Hamas, so the analogy fails–and fails miserably, but that didn’t stop Malmo (with its 20% Muslim Middle Eastern population) from turning out in force to protest a 20-year-old Israeli woman singing a beautiful song.
And then came the scoring. Eurovision scoring has two parts: Each country has a small jury that awards points and then each country has an open vote in which all residents can vote, with points going to the top vote-getters.
And what happened, persistently, in country after country, is that the popular vote gave Israel more points—sometimes far more points—than the juries. Please turn to your handout on page 6, where you will see a huge table.
In the green, Israel is highlighted. As you can see in column 7 of the table, the juries ranked Israel 12th out of 25 finalists. However, column 6 shows that the public votes placed Israel second. In fact, in numerous countries where the public vote gave Israel the highest possible score of 12 points, the national jury gave Israel 0 points, including Australia, Switzerland, Spain, Greece, the United Kingdom, Italy, and others. This does not seem likely if artistic, compositional, and/or performance merits alone were considered.
In all, Israel ended up in 5th place, the fantastic public scoring being weighed down by the mediocre jury scores. Or to frame it from the opposite perspective, Israel received mediocre scores from the jury but was raised up considerably by the very high public scores.
Israel’s ratio of public score received to jury score received was 6.2:1 (where you might expect a ratio of roughly 1:1, if all parties were scoring based on performance. This, indeed, was the average ratio. Israel’s ratio was, by far, the most out-of-whack of any country.
By now, you may be asking yourself, “Why on earth does this matter?” But it does matter. It matters because it hints at—although it doesn’t prove, but hints at—a moral majority across Europe that supports Israel, that understands Israel’s fight, that remembers who the good guys are.
Whereas the juries are public figures, worried about their image if they are known to have supported Israel, the public, cloaked in anonymity, gets to say what they really believe. And the jury must believe in the merit of the song “Hurricane” and Eden’s performance, because they had to pay in order to vote. The public demonstration took their toll on the jury members, who felt exposed and threatened. The private voting public could vote their conscience, because they were not harangued and harassed, let alone threatened.
This reminds me of another recent story, far less covered, and a world away from Eurovision, in Hanover, New Hampshire. The Dartmouth student government considered a vote of no confidence in the university president Sian Beilock. Beilock, who is Jewish, is known as a fantastic leader. Before taking the position at Dartmouth, she was president of Barnard College. The reason for the vote of no confidence in her was because she dealt with anti-Israel protesters on campus, asking local police to intervene. Some 90 persons were arrested. That led to the surprise, unexpected public vote of no confidence.
According to the school newspaper, student government members were unexpectedly pressed into taking the no confidence vote during a public meeting, and the vote passed 13-2, expressing the students’ lack of confidence in Beilock’s leadership.
And then, surprisingly, the student government president Jessica Chiriboga vetoed the resolution “because several senators expressed interest in deliberating [the issue] further.” President Chiriboga moved the meeting into closed session—in other words, held a private vote, free from intimidating eyes, and cameras, and social media accounts—and called for another vote, which then failed 8-9.
President Obama’s chief political strategist David Axelrod used to say that “there’s a reason why then Senator John F. Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage was such a slim volume.” Most people do not present themselves as a “profile in courage;” in actuality, many public figures reveal themselves to be “profiles in cowardice.” The student officials at Dartmouth did not cover themselves in glory. But their revealed preferences in that second, anonymous vote hint at minds less inclined to radicalism than they seem, once safely out of sight of their censorious peers.
The case of these two votes–the one at Eurovision, and the one at Dartmouth–tell us several things. People will say and do things publicly that they do not believe to be true, particularly when they feel their jobs and their lives are at stake. Many people have jumped on the anti-Israel bandwagon, but not because they are anti-Israel, but because they do not wish to be doxed, or worse. “To dox” means to search for and publish private or identifying information about a particular individual (or group) on the internet, typically with malicious intent.
Our verse prescribing the Omer teaches us that the weeks that we count should be shabbatot t’mimot, “complete weeks,” but the Hebrew could also be rendered “unimpaired weeks.” The biblical meaning of “unimpaired” means in an ethical context.
The people of Israel, as an entity, have tried to promote and live out a way of life that is chayyim t’mimim, that forges a moral path that is unimpaired by others’ tauntings or news reports. We have remained true to ourselves and our values.
The Omer period tries to remind us of our origin story, when we became a covenantal community in the pristine environment of the wilderness, where the air was clear, our future bright, and our vision forward. So, reminded, we are invited to sharpen our moral vision, dial in to our ethical compass, and to continue to live lives of kindness, love, and mitzvot, regardless of the social, cultural, or political climate in which we find ourselves.
And when we are able to do this, to live up to our highest selves, we do not merely count each day; we make each day count.
Shabbat shalom!
[1] Leviticus 23:15.