In the weekly section of the Torah, which begins the fourth book, called Bamidbar, the Torah relates how God commands Moshe to conduct a new census of the Jewish people.
Generally, one counts objects because one wants to know how many one has. However, in this case, God doesn't need a census to know how many Jews there are. So why does He command Moses to count?
To understand this, let's analyze a statement from our sages: "Rabbi Hanania ben Akashia says: God wanted lezakot for the Jewish people, so He increased the Torah and the Mitzvot, etc." The Hebrew word lezakot can be translated in two ways:
1) The simplest explanation is to give merit, meaning that God wanted to increase the reward of the Jewish people in the World to Come, which is why He gave us a great number of Torah and Mitzvot. Or, on a deeper level, He increased the spiritual level of the Torah and Mitzvot so that we can, through them, attain a much higher reward than we would deserve simply by observing a practical Mitzvah in this material world and by studying Torah with our intellect.
2) The most subtle way to translate this word is to refine. God wanted to refine us through the study of Torah and the observance of the Mitzvot, so that we might be better people in this world, and not just yearn for a reward in the world to come.
From this second explanation it follows that the purpose for which God gives us the Torah and the Mitzvot is not for Him, as Job said thousands of years ago, "If you are going to be righteous, what will you add to Him, what will He take from your hands?" In simpler terms, God does not need our Mitzvot, but gave them to us for our own good.
Similarly, there is the idea of the reckoning of the Jewish people that God commands through Moses and Aaron. It is not for Him, but for us.
One explanation for the benefit we receive through counting is that it reveals God's love for us. Just as someone who possesses something valuable counts it constantly because they have a strong connection to it and can't stop thinking about it, in the same way, we are God's "precious possession," which is why He counts us.
But unlike the counting of any valuable object, which is simply to satisfy one's own satisfaction derived from the object, here the counting is intended to let the Jewish people know that God loves them, considers them, and never stops thinking about them.
While the very fact that we exist and what we have around us at the very moment we read this editorial is proof that God thinks of us, the reckoning that God commands us to do reveals this connection and this importance that the Jewish people have for God.
As Rabbi Akiva used to say in Ethics of Our Fathers, in another context but with the same idea and in connection with the festival of Shavuot, the time of the Giving of the Torah, "The people of Israel are beloved since they were given a precious article, and even greater love is indicated by the fact that this was made known to them.".
If we had only been given the Torah, but had not been informed that it is a Torah of Life, with teachings for daily life, an Eternal Torah, applicable in all places and all times, we would be a lost, bewildered, and directionless people, and we would quickly dissolve among the other nations. But now that we have not only been given this precious document, but also have had its preciousness and meaning explained to us, we ourselves become eternal as a people, drawing our strength and continuity from the Torah.
May we receive the Torah with joy and internalize it,