To count is to care. The medieval commentators understood this. They noted that God counts Israel repeatedly, not out of forgetfulness, but out of love. Just as one counts prized possessions to ensure their safety, so too does God count the people. In this parashah, the census occurs in the second month of the second year after the Exodus. The Tabernacle has just been completed. The nation is being prepared to journey. But before the people can move, they must be numbered. Identity and presence are confirmed through number.

The act of counting in Bemidbar is not simply an exercise in data gathering. It is a ritual. The Mishnah (Menahot 10:3) teaches that “the omer offering [on the second day of Passover] permits the new grain for consumption” (מִשֶּׁקֵּרֵב עֹמֶר הֻתְרָה חָדָשׁ בַּמִּדְרָש) and it sets into motion the ritual of sefirat ha-omer, the counting of the days between Pesah and Shavuot. Day by day, we make our way from liberation to revelation. Counting marks the movement from chaos to covenant.

So too with the bikkurim—the first fruits. These were brought to the Temple specifically on Shavuot, as instructed in Deuteronomy 26 and Leviticus 23:17, which refers to the “day of first fruits” (יוֹם הַבִּכּוּרִים). Shavuot thus marks not only the giving of Torah, but also the moment when the agricultural firsts of the land were dedicated to God. Mishnah Bikkurim chapter 3 describes how the farmer, upon seeing the first fig or pomegranate ripen in the field, ties a reed around it and declares, “This is bikkurim” (הֲרֵי אֵלּוּ בִּכּוּרִים). A simple act of noticing becomes a moment of sanctification. It is an act that unites the personal and the communal, the agricultural and the spiritual. When the time comes, the farmer brings those fruits to Jerusalem, with song, procession, and thanksgiving.

Both the omer count and the bikkurim involve numbers, but they also involve narrative. They mark transitions: from slavery to freedom, from wilderness to Torah, from potential to fulfillment. They are structured rituals of awareness. Counting days or tying a reed around a fruit are not ends in themselves. They are practices of mindfulness, of spiritual attention.

This is not a modern overlay. The Torah itself associates the wilderness, the midbar, with the condition for revelation. In the midrashic imagination, God chose to give the Torah in a place that belonged to no tribe, no nation. The midbar is ownerless. To enter it, to be counted in it, is to renounce claim and embrace vulnerability.

Ritual counting, then, is a paradox. It affirms the value of each individual (“head by head”—לְגֻלְגְּלֹתָם) while simultaneously pulling the individual into a greater whole. The medieval commentators saw this as well. When the Levites are counted separately, it is not to marginalize them but to elevate them—to mark their distinct role in the sacred center. Counting, in this view, is not flattening but differentiating.

And yet, the Torah also warns against certain kinds of counting. Later, King David will count the people without proper cause or offering, and a plague ensues. The Talmud (Berakhot 55a) teaches that blessing does not dwell on that which is measured or counted or weighed, but only on that which is hidden from the eye: אֵין הַבְּרָכָה מְצוּיָה אֶלָּא בְּדָבָר הַסָּמוּי מִן הָעַיִן.

Why count at all? The answer lies in the intent. In Bemidbar, the counting is commanded by God, mediated by Moses and Aaron, and connected to the building of a holy community. It is not an assertion of control, but an invitation to responsibility. Each name is recorded not for its statistical value, but for its sacred role.

Consider the Levites. They are counted not from age 20 like the rest of the tribes, but from age one month (Num. 3:15; פְּקֹד אֶת־בְּנֵי לֵוִי . . .  מִבֶּן חֹדֶשׁ וָמָעְלָה), and again from ages 30 to 50 for those performing the labor (Num. 4:3; מִבֶּן שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וָמַעְלָה). These multiple censuses show that even within the sacred, there are layers of function, readiness, and service. Counting here is attuned to context and capacity.

The Mishnah (Menahot 10:5) notes:

מִשֶּׁחָרַב בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ… סוֹפְרִין אֶת הַיָּמִים.

“From the day the Temple was destroyed, no longer do we bring the omer, but we still count the days.”

Ritual can outlive structure. The frame remains even when the content shifts. Our counting preserves the aspiration.

In the same way, Mishnah Bikkurim 3 describes how groups of pilgrims would ascend to Jerusalem, flute players leading the way, chanting Psalms. Each step of the journey was part of the offering. The counting, the tying, the walking, the declaring—it was all a kind of liturgy. Notably, the Mishnah gives detailed accounts of both the omer count and the bikkurim rituals. These descriptive layers are not merely instructional; they are themselves a form of counting. The Hebrew root ס.פ.ר. (s-f-r) carries this dual meaning: it signifies both counting (as in סְפִירָה, sefirah) and telling or narrating (as in סִפֵּר, sipper). A number is not only a quantity, but a story. To count is to name, to recall, to witness. The linguistic richness deepens when we recall that in Arabic, the cognate root s-f-r means “to travel” or “to journey.” Thus, counting, telling, and traveling are bound together by language. Every sefirah is both a tally and a tale. And each step from Egypt to Sinai—whether marked by grain, fruit, or word—is a passage worth retelling.

Today, our own spiritual lives can feel unmeasurable. We rarely mark progress in clear increments. But Jewish ritual, especially in this season, offers tools to make time visible and sacred. Counting the omer. Marking the first fruit. Reading Bemidbar.

Counting is not sterile. It is intimate. When the Torah opens with a census, it is opening with a question: Will you see yourself in the count? Will you make yourself count? Will you step forward, name by name, heart by heart?

The wilderness is not a void. It is a vessel. And counting is the practice that fills it. It makes room for memory, expectation, and commitment. As we stand between Egypt and Sinai, between Bemidbar and Shavuot, we count not only days but possibilities.

May we learn to count in this way—not to limit, but to lift. Not to calculate, but to consecrate. And may the act of counting lead us, once again, to the place where we heard a voice that spoke from fire, saying: “You are counted. You matter. You belong.”—אַתָּה נִמְנֶה. יֵשׁ לְךָ עֵרֶךְ. אַתָּה שַׁיָּךְ.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

Moshe, too, after killing the Egyptian and prior to his divine call to leadership, retreats to the wilderness, a period of withdrawal into a space outside the habitation of society. It was only in that space, R. Bahya ben Asher suggests, far from the yishuv (dwelling place) of the population, that Moshe could reenact the prophetic encounter of his ancestors, a withdrawal for the sake of spiritual and moral elevation (commentary to ). Like Moshe the solitary shepherd, the people of Israel must undergo a spiritual transformation, a process of purification—from the impure state of idolatry to the refined condition necessary to enter the holy land. This purification is represented by the desolate nature of the wilderness—a vast emptiness that facilitates a breakthrough in mind and soul. As Kathleen Norris has written, evoking life on the Great Plains of Dakota as a spiritual practice:

Here the eye learns to appreciate slight variations, the possibilities inherent in emptiness. It sees that the emptiness is full of small things… A person is forced inward by the spareness of what is outward and visible in all this land and sky… Maybe seeing the Plains is like seeing an icon: what seems stern and almost empty is merely open, a door into some simple and holy state (Dakota, pp. 156-7).

The experience of what appears to be emptiness is an opening into another state of spiritual perception, an opening of the heart into the concealed indwelling of divine holiness. The sublime interior of the human soul is revealed in that moment of mystery and grandeur before the vastness of the All.

Likewise, R. Bahya asks, restating an earlier midrashic teaching (Tanhuma, 6; ): why does the Torah emphasize God’s speech to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai (בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי)? It was to teach that “a person does not attain the Torah until they have made themselves empty and abandoned like the wilderness” (אין אדם קונה התורה עד שיעשה עצמו הפקר כמדבר) [commentaryto ]. To receive the revelation of Torah—or perhaps a bit less grandly, to let Torah take root in one’s heart—a person must first make themselves into a midbar, an inner empty wilderness that is cleared of all the weeds and brush that obstruct true perception and feeling. A wilderness that returns to the first purity of nature.

Just as divine revelation and the Torah arise from the physical space of wilderness, of midbar—at the burning bush and then at Mount Sinai—a heart infused with divine Torah arises through a person’s mindful cultivation of their own interior wilderness. One should seek to attain the level of hefker—of feeling unbound by the pride and egoism of ownership, of being unattached to materialism. In hefker consciousness, we train our spiritual sight to see the Divine Presence that dwells beneath the surface, beneath the many golden calves of our obsessions, possessions, and wayward priorities. This is a radical reinvention of the concept of hefker, a neutral halakhic category of abandonment and ownerlessness (e.g. ).

In this transformed reading, the midbar may be said to embody a pure state of emptiness—an inner cleansing that allows us to go deeper into the spiritual path. Becoming hefker kemidbar is a process of letting go of our imprisonment in materiality, in ephemeral and finite desires—to be liberated into the vastness of an inner wilderness. As R. Nahman of Bratzlav taught (Likutei Moharan I:52), the most profound opening of the heart to God takes place in the physical space of darkness and wilderness, the frightening ground of loneliness and alienation. It is in hitbodedut (solitude) that we are able to empty our minds and hearts of society’s overwhelming drumbeat, where the ultimate bitul hayeish (erasure of superficial, mundane consciousness) becomes possible, and we are truly opened in all of our vulnerability before Divinity. In that place of midbar, we are able to break open the heart in ways we didn’t know were possible, to cry out to God from a place of the deepest emotional honesty. The midbar is an inner place of psyche as much as it is a terrestrial location.

But it washefker kemidbaras a state ofmoralpiety that was first articulated by the Sages (see; Bahya ben Asher,Kad Hakemah, “Orhim”; Metzudat Davidon), and this interpersonal dimension remains a powerful feature of the ideal to which we aspire. As these sources teach, one should make one’s homehefker kemidbar, free and open for all—cultivating an ethic of hospitality in which the poor and the less fortunate feel free to come and be cared for. The model of wilderness, ofmidbar, is here taken to be an inspiration to live a life of openness and kindness toward other human beings. As the modern monk Thomas Merton said: “The speech of God is silence. His Word is solitude…It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and my sister” (Entering the Silence, 2:398). In this reading,hefker is understood in the most charitable and positive sense of “free for all,” as opposed to the more pejorative meaning ofhefkeras a chaotic and uncontrolled “free-for-all.” The openness of amidbar-state-of-being is one that inspires kindness and generosity: the gentleness needed to sincerely love one’s fellow person. That gentleness is the silent speech of God flowing though man and woman to be realized as moral living. Integrating Merton’s insight with the Jewish sources we have considered, the retreat of solitude is filled with the living word of God, the breath of divine sustenance. It is our spiritual work to let that divine solitude refine the openness and gentleness with which we treat our fellow human beings.

To paraphrase the teaching: You will attain the true soul of Torah only when you have made yourself hefker kemidbar—a person cleansed of superficial obsessions, gentle and generous toward other people, one who has nullified the grip of pride and egoism. As the early Hasidic rebbe R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk (Pri Ha’aretz, Letter 27) taught, true wisdom and humanity rises from the cultivation of deep humility:

The Torah only stands firm in one who makes himself like a����������������ڰ��� before those who are poor of mind and rich of mind, and he doesn’t think of himself as better than his friend. On the contrary, he should be completely nullified before his friend, and it is through this that they become united and bound up one with the other.

True spiritual refinement, the deepest attainment ofhefker kemidbar, must not remain at the level of individualistic mystical growth and the personal quest for divine revelation. To realize the ideals of piety, to ensconce the living Torah in the wholeness of oneself, a person must aspire toward a genuine humility, to avoid the harmful path of judgmentalism and arrogance. It is in the bond of loving friendship and fellowship, in kindness and humility toward the other, that the Torah—and God—are most radiantly revealed.

This commentary was originally published in 2017.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

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With Dr. Benjamin Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, 91�첥

This session was generously sponsored by Yale Asbell, 91�첥 Trustee, and by the Talkback group of Temple Israel Scranton and Beyond in appreciation for the Torah that is disseminated from 91�첥 and the scholars who share their Torah.

We’ve heard its stories; we’ve heard it chanted in synagogue; we’ve seen it hoisted in the air displaying handwritten ink on parchment; we’ve taken classes on it. But what, actually, is the Torah? A law code? A history book? An ancient novel? A saga? None of these categorizations quite fits. In this session, we consider what defines the distinctive genre of the Torah, where this genre comes from, how it reappears in Jewish culture over the ages—and what addressing these questions can teach us about the Jewish religion.

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Join 91�첥’s renowned faculty to learn about their current work and greatest passions. Drawing on their expertise, scholars will offer inspiring learning and expose us to new ideas and insights that help us connect the Jewish past with the Jewish future. 

. . . I will establish My abode in your midst, and I will not spurn you. I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people. (Lev. 26: 11–12)

We receive Divine assurance of a close and loving relationship with God, one that has important implications for material wealth and success: if the Israelites follow the Torah, they will be blessed with the warm and affectionate presence of the God of Israel. But the tone shifts ominously almost immediately:

But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you . . .(14–16)

If the Israelites do not keep the mitzvot, there will be devastating consequences: misery and pain, consumption and fever, failed crops and stolen harvests, humiliating defeats and brutal beasts, plague and famine. Scholars have long noted that this section (14–39) of curses (ḳe�������dz�) and rebuke (�ٴǰ��ḥa��) is nearly three times as long as the section of blessings (3–13) that proceeds it. The consolation at the end is also short: The survivors of this catastrophe, now in exile in the land of their foes, will experience a change of heart, and laying aside their old habit of transgression, will honestly confess their sin and find favor with God. The Torah promises them:

Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or spurn them, or destroy them, or annul My covenant with them.

For the sake of the “covenant with the first-ones” (the earliest Fathers and Mothers of the people) the Israelites will find themselves back in their Creator’s powerful loving embrace.

Why do we continue to read such horrible curses, and another passage much like it in Parashat Ki Tavo (Deut. 28:1–68), each year? The simplest answer is that we read the entirety of the Torah each year, omitting nothing. However, the Mishnah (Megillah 3:6) already notes something special about the curses of the Leviticus passage: “The section of curses must not be broken up but must all be read by one person.”

One of the comments we find in the Talmud explaining this practice tries to balance this need for completeness with the need for some relief:

“Rabbi Shimon son of Lakish said: [We read it in a single go] so that the blessing [typically recited at the beginning of the reading] isn’t said over punishment.” What should a person do? It was taught: “One should start reading in the passage before the section [of curses] and conclude in the passage after it.”

(B. Megillah 31b)

Rabbi Shimon son of Lakish (Resh Lakish) asserts that we should read the curses bracketed by two adjacent sections of blessing in a single reading so that the person who makes the blessing “noten hatorah” can be said to have done so over passages that describe blessings rather than curses.

But this is not the only way that we bracket these two lengthy passages of curses. We may have no choice but to read them, but we can control when we read them in the course of the year. Later in the same Talmudic passage we read:

It has been taught: “Rabbi Simeon b. Eleazar says: Ezra made a regulation for Israel that they should read the curses in Leviticus before Shavuot and those in Deuteronomy before Rosh Ha-Shanah.” What is the reason?  Abaye—or some say it was Resh Lakish—said: “So that when the year ends, so will its curses.”

In other words, we read these curses just before the year’s seasonal turn so that—in a sort of merciful act—the curses are only in effect until the conclusion of the ritual resetting of the year. The declaration of curses is an annual warning. Twice a year we are read the “riot act” and cautioned to be on our best behavior. But the punishment could only befall us until the end of the holiday period that concludes that portion of the year. For the fall harvest this would be the day after Shemini Atzeret (the convocation for Sukkot—the day after is the 22nd of Tishrei). And the Talmud continues:

Shavuot is also a New Year, as we have learnt in a Mishnah (Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:2): “Shavuot is the new year for fruit from trees.”

Thus, for the summer the period would end the week after Shavuot (a week, not a day, since we count seven weeks leading up to the festival) on the 15th of Sivan (this year, Friday June 21st). The Torah reading is structured in such a way that each period of danger lasts about a month. As Maimonides writes in the Mishneh Torah (Tefillah 13:2):

Ezra instituted the practice of having the Jews read the curses found in the book of Leviticus before Shavuot, and those found in the book of Deuteronomy before Rosh Hashanah. It is a common custom to read Bemidbarbefore Shavuot [and] . . .  Nitzavim before Rosh Hashanah . . .

In other words, there is one parashah each that separates the curses in Behukkotai and Ki Tavo by one week from Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah respectively: Bemidbar,the parashah after Behukkotai, is always read before Shavuot. Nitzavim, the parashah after Ki Tavo, is always read before Rosh Hashanah. Why do we extend the period by a week each year? According to Mordecai ben Avraham Yoffe (c. 1530–1612) in his halakhic work Levush Malkhut, this limits the time (or perhaps the immediacy of the claim) that the demonic prosecutor has to bring Israel’s sins to God’s attention:

 . . . and we also pause a week, so that the curses are not read immediately before Shavuot, since this [festival] is the day of judgment for the trees. And we do not want to give a claim to the Satan that he could use for [their] prosecution, heaven forbid!

It is important to note that Yoffe sees two different types of danger here: in the fall the danger is from enemies, disease, or violent calamity; in the summer the danger is to agriculture, the environment, and economic conditions. In other words, there are two kinds of threats. One sort of threat is to our person, our bodies, and our physical well-being. The other is to our world, our livelihood, and the well-being of our property. Which is the greater threat? The more immediate threat to our lives is violence and calamity. But ultimately, the greater threat is the environmental one. We will all die, eventually, but we hope the world will be a place that our descendants can live on in abundance after us. If we cannot give them a safe place to live, how is any sort of future possible?

May the Ribono shel olam grant us the strength to face both sorts of challenges and may we and those we love pass through all periods of danger well, unharmed, and full of blessings and abundance! 

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

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The skies recount God’s splendor

                              the expanse above proclaims His handiwork. 

                    One day utters a word to the next,

                              one night conveys knowledge to another. 

                    There is no speech, there are no words

                              whose voice cannot be heard.

                    Their sound goes through all the world,

                              their words, to the end of the earth.

                    In the skies He set a tent for the sun,

                              which is like a groom who comes out of his chamber,

                              like a hero, delighted to run the course. 

                    It rises at one end of the sky,

                              and its circuit goes to the other;

                              nothing is hidden from its heat. 

                    Hashem’s Torah is wholesome,

                              renewing life;

                    Hashem’s covenant is trustworthy,

                              making the simpleminded wise; 

                    Hashem’s orders are fair,

                              gladdening one’s mind;

                    Hashem’s command is bright,

                              bringing light to one’s eyes;

                    Hashem’s awe is pure,

                              enduring forever;

                    Hashem’s judgements are true,

                              they are always correct, 

                    More desirable than gold,

                              than quantities of platinum;

                    Sweeter than honey,

                              than drippings from the comb. 

                    Your servant, too, takes care with them;

                              in obeying them there is great bounty. 

                    Who can see his own errors?

                              Cleanse me of what is hidden, 

                    From presumption, too,

                              guard Your servant;

                     Let them not rule me;

                              then shall I become wholehearted

                              and be cleansed of terrible sins. 

                    May speech from my mouth and thoughts of my mind

                              find  acceptance before You,       

                              Hashem, my rock and redeemer.

The first part of the poem describes the cosmos God created, focusing on the sky and the sun. The second concentrates on God’s law or teaching. We might say, then, that the psalm contains a nature stanza and a Torah stanza. Surprisingly, the Torah stanza is full of words that ancient Near Eastern literature uses to describe the sun: “bringing light to one’s eyes,” “golden,” “renewing life” (for in the ancient world, the rising sun rather than an alarm clock brought people back to life each morning), “judgements” that “make the simple wise” (since sun-gods in the ancient Near East were also deities of justice and learning), as well as “sweet” and “honey” (probably because light-colored honey, like gold, recalls the color of the sun). Further, the scholar Michael Carasik has pointed out that the first, or nature, stanza, is full of words relating to texts and scribes, which remind us of the Torah and learning: “recount,” “proclaim,” “utters,” “word,” “conveys knowledge,” and “speech.” The nature stanza alludes to the world of Torah, even as the Torah stanza hints at nature. This mirror-imaging shows that the two parts of the poem are in dialogue with each other. What comment does the nature stanza make about Torah, and the Torah stanza about nature? 

One can come to know God through observing the world God created, and one can come to know God by observing God’s laws, but these two different senses of “observing”—watching and obeying—lead to different kinds of connection. The psalm distinguishes between two types of disclosure of the divine: one that takes place constantly and impersonally in nature, and another that takes place when God provides guidance to a human being or a human community. The psalm forces us to ask: Must our connection to God involve covenant and law? To what extent and in what ways can a divine-human relationship exist without the institutions listed in the second stanza?

The different terms used for God in each stanza help answer these questions. The first stanza refers to God with the Hebrew term el, a word that simply means “deity.” It is a noun, not a name; more specifically, it is a job title. The second stanza uses God’s personal name, spelled in Hebrew with the four letters yod, heh, waw, and heh, which, in Jewish tradition, we never pronounce out loud. (I render this name above as “Hashem.”) To refer to a being by the being’s job title suggests respect but distance. To refer to someone by name evinces a personal relationship. From observing the cosmos, one knows about God. From observing the terms of God’s covenant, one begins directly to know God. In addition, many ancient Semitic nations used the word el; that term or some close cognate means “god” in the languages of the Israelites’ near and far neighbors in Phoenicia, Edom, Moab, the Aramean kingdoms, Babylonia, and Assyria. But the four-letter name was peculiar to the Israelites. Consequently, we may speak of the knowledge of God in the first stanza as universal; it is available to all humanity. The relationship with God in the second is particular; God made it specifically available to the Jewish people.

Knowledge about God in the first stanza requires action on humanity’s part: we must turn to creation, observe it, think about what we perceive, and come to conclusions. The relationship with God in the second stanza, on the other hand, requires God to turn to humanity, and thus this relationship is based on divine grace. In the first stanza God is object, while in the second God is subject. This contrast becomes more pointed in the very last verse of the poem, which opens us up to dialogue and redemption, for here for the first time the speaker addresses Hashem directly, referring to the deity as redeemer. God’s turning to us in Torah at the beginning of the second stanza is what allows us to begin speaking to God towards the end of that stanza. Creation does not quite do this on its own.

Revelation through nature, this psalm suggests, is valid, but limited in comparison with revelation through Torah. This is why the second stanza, alluding to the sun, tells us that Hashem’s Torah, covenant, and judgments are “More desirable than gold, than quantities of platinum, Sweeter than honey, than drippings from the comb.” When we recall that gold and honey symbolized the sun in ancient Near Eastern religions, we can recognize that these lines acknowledge the value and sweetness of what we learn from nature, even as they assert the superiority of the relationship we develop with God through carrying out the Torah’s covenantal law.

Our Shavuot psalm, then, is concerned with a journey that we make on Shavuot—and every day of the Jewish year—when we receive the Torah anew. It moves us from knowledge of God to relationship with God, from propositions about God to covenant with God, from speculation to law, from reasoning to action, from detachment to grace.

But both parts of the poem are relevant for modern Jews. The first part reminds us that God is not only found in books, in the beit midrash, and in Jewish law. There can be religious value in interrupting one’s study of the law to observe the beauty of a tree or the loveliness of a meadow; and it behooves us to recall that all religions, and also people not connected to a specific religion, can acquire authentic and true knowledge of the one God by studying God’s creations. But the second part teaches that for Jews, that type of knowledge, while necessary, is not sufficient. The relationship to which God called us at Sinai, and to which God calls again in every generation, requires covenant and law, relationship and observance.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

[1] These traditions vary; there are Sephardic, Yemenite, Italian, and two main Ashkenazic customs.

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These nine images are part of one illumination that depicts Moses receiving the law. It comes from a 15th Century Manuscript, The Rothschild Mahzor, which is part of 91�첥 Special Collections. You can learn more here about the image itself and how the Rothschild Mahzor came to be part of the collection.