Happy Shavuot (Holiday of Weeks)
Today, May 23, Jews around the world celebrated the Holiday of Shavuot. This holiday is celebrated exactly 7 weeks after Passover (Shavuot). This holiday commemorates the receiving of the ten commandments by Moses in Jewish history (or mythology - you pick).
Belonging to a relatively small people, I frequently wondered how many
Jews are living today, and what is the meaning of this number. In
2004, the estimated number of Jewish people was 15 million (source:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904108.html).
Here's another number: "from 2000 to 2001 the Jewish population rose
0.3%, compared to worldwide population growth of 1.4%". One more: "in
1939 there were 17 million Jews in the world, and by 1945 only 11
million. While in the 13 years following the Holocaust the Jewish
population grew by one million, it took another 38 years for it to grow
another million. These sobering figures reflect how severely Jewish
population growth has slowed down over the past 40 years. Even a
fertility increase of 0.4% will add millions of Jews over the next 50
years. But this is not happening right now."
(source:
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/world-jewish-population.htm).
For the Holiday of Weeks (Shavuot), my family and I watched the classic
movie: "The Ten Commandments". It was an interesting experience to
watch it thirty years after the first time. As Jewish person, it is
quite interesting to see the event which defined us as people. It is
difficult (actually impossible) to establish whether the Exodus, or the
departure from Egypt is a real historical event or a myth. The favored
date puts the event at about
(source: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/exodus/f/ExodusDate.htm)
between 13th and 16th century B.C. This translates to about 3500 years
ago, assuming it actually happened. For a population accounting
purposes, this serves as a reasonable (although far from scientific)
starting point.
Although there is no record of the precise number that left Egypt in
the Exodus, a military census taken not long after listed the number of
men 20 years of age and older who could serve in the army as 603,550
(Exodus 38:26). From that number, the total Israelite population of
that time has been estimated at approximately 2 to 3 million. (source:
http://www.keyway.ca/htm2001/20010121.htm). Interestingly enough, I
found in the same web site, a question: it is said in the bible, that
70 people went down to Egypt from Canaan, and that after 430 years,
when they left Egypt, there were between 2 to 3 million, how is it
possible? The site actually goes through the trouble of calculating
the population, assuming a doubling of the population every generation
(assuming 4 children at the age of 27. 2 to replace the parents and 2
for growth).
Beginning with the original 70 people, assuming 15 generations in 430
years, growth of the Israelite nation using our factors above would
have been: 70*2 to the 15th power = 2,293,760 people after 430 years.
However, today, a rapid population growth of 1.9% per year, translates
into doubling of the population every 37 years (India).
What if we assume doubling of the population every 200 years (slow by
all standards). Since the exodus, we have 17 generations (200 years
each), and a starting point of between 2-3 million people. For the
sake of the argument, lets assume there were only one million people to
leave Egypt. This should yield 1 million * 2 to the 17th power or the
fantastic number of 131,072,000,000. It is quite obvious that this is
nowhere near the real number. So what happened? Where have all the
Jews gone?
Some answers are simple: persecution, pogroms, wars, starvations,
diseases helped the reduction in numbers. But is that the entire
story? I assume not. While watching the movie, remembering the story
of the golden calf, it made a lot of sense to me that there was a
series of action and reaction within the Jewish people. Some would
build a "golden calf" and as a result would be cast away,
excommunicated, redefining the "people" as something more restrictive,
and therefore - smaller. For example: a group of people would decide
that a certain dietary restriction should be changed, they would act on
it, and the next thing you know: their children can't marry, they can't
be buried in an orthodox Jewish cemetery. The remainder, adopt even a
stricter dietary code, hence making the people smaller yet again. 3500
years of doing, and redoing it created a small people on one hand, and
a very strict, segregated, well defined communities living beside
them. Living in Israel, it is all too obvious: the ultra-orthodox want
nothing to do with the state's education systems, and so they have
their own. They live in small, segregated communities, where strangers
are almost not allowed. As they accept more and more restrictions,
more and more people leave.
As for me, I am a Jew by birth, and an atheist by choice. Simply
stated, I am not sure how my descendants will be counted in 100 years...
Posted at
07:56PM May 23, 2007
by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal |
Wednesday May 23, 2007
thanks for this post
Posted by otel rehberim on November 07, 2009 at 09:46 PM CST #