בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
בְּרוּךֶ אַתֶה חֲוָיָה שְׁכִינּוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדַשְׁתַנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֶיהֶ וְצִוְתָנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָהּ אֱלֹהָתֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קֵרְבָתְנוּ לַעֲבוֹדָתָהּ וְצִוְתָנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
Blessings for learning and studying Torah
Berakhot 11b:
Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Nonbinary Hebrew Project:
B’rucheh ateh Khavayah Shekhinu ruach ha’olam asher kidash’tanu b’mitzvotei’he v’tziv’tanu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Feminine God Language:
Brukhah at Ya Elohateinu ruach ha’olam asher keir’vat’nu la’avodatah v’tziv’tavnu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Avital Hochstein, "Bemidbar: Counting as a Symbol of Love, Construction, and Exclusion," https://www.hartman.org.il/bemidbar/
There are a number of ramifications of this counting. First, women are not counted, their heads are not lifted, they are not part of the community of Benei Yisrael who are mentioned and counted by name. It appears that this is because they are considered dependent upon their husbands, or included in their counting, like children. Second, this means that certain families will not be counted, like those of a widow. This renders whole social units transparent, invisible – their members’ names aren’t worth mentioning, nor are they counted among those who comprise the numbers of “the Israelite community.”
This reality, that there are members of the Jewish people who are sidelined by this counting, [...] makes it so that God’s grand gesture of affection actually excludes the widow and the orphan, those whom God especially professes to care about and love.
Abi Weissman, "So Many Ways Not To Be Counted,"
https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/so-many-ways-not-to-be-counted-parashat-bamidbar/
Who is counted? And who is not? In the Parshah, all 603,550 men over the age of 20 who can fight are counted. In "The Five Books of Miriam: A Women’s Commentary on the Torah," Ellen Frankel reminds her readers that the women and children are left out of this counting; the Levites are counted, but in a separate census. The “mixed multitude” that went with the Israelites out of Egypt are also not counted. All told, Frankel counts about two million Israelites who left Egypt at the Exodus. Only a small portion of the total population [are] counted in this census.
Jacob Milgrom, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers
The march of the Israelites through the wilderness, from Mount Sinai to the promised land, will take them through hostile environments, both natural and human. To meet those dangers, the people must be organized into a military camp, which requires a census. Under the supervision of Moses, Aaron, and the tribal chieftains, all males over twenty, other than Levites, are registered by their respective clan. The Levites, who are assigned special functions, are subject to a special census.
Carol L. Meyers, “Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?”
[S]enior women functioned as the COOs (Chief Operating Officers) of their households. They were hardly oppressed and powerless. Nor were they subordinate to male control in all aspects of household life. Rather, in subsistence households in traditional societies comparable to ancient Israel, when women and men both make significant economic contributions to household life, female–male relationships are marked by interdependence or mutual dependence.
Tracy Maria Lemos, “Were Israelite Women Chattel? – Shedding New Light on an Old Question”
While Israelite society was governed by different hierarchies, and gender binaries were not always the most important set of oppositions, the extant evidence in my view leaves little doubt that wives were subordinate to husbands and daughters to fathers. In the case of wives, however, this subordination is not best understood in terms of ownership or a property relation.
Prof. Ada Taggar-Cohen, "Why Are There No Israelite Priestesses?" https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-are-there-no-israelite-priestesses
Simply put, in the Bible, kohanim (priests) are men; there is no word for “priestess” (כהנת) or “Levitess” (לויה). In contrast, the Bible does have the category known as daughter of a priest (בת כהן; Lev 21:9, 22:12-13) who is not a female cultic professional, but rather a woman who is part of the household of a cultic professional.
We do read of the singers and drum players, the women who worked in the temple and finally the women who were at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, but their precise role in the cult is not clear.
Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai
On the one hand, women can choose to accept our absence [at such moments], in which case we allow the male text to define us and our relationship to the tradition. On the other hand, we can stand on the ground of our experience, on the certainty of our membership in our own people. To do this, however, is to be forced to remember and recreate its history. It is to move from anger at the tradition, through anger to empowerment.
Tamar Cohn Eskenazi, "B'midbar," The Torah: A Women's Commentary
Although the scrupulous detail of the parashat and other parts of the book may not immediately grip the reader, the underlying idea is that the ordering of the community - and by extension, one's life - creates the space for encounters with the Divine. The power of this book emerges from the image of the encampment's concentric rectangles radiating inward to a core of supreme holiness. In this geometry of moving from the periphery to the center, the tribes encamped around the Levites, who encircle the high priestly family, who surround the Tabernacle's curtained walls that enclose the court that buffers the Holy of Holies.