Zelophehad | Sharing Jewish Tradition

I just can’t decide whether the Daughters of Tzelafchad get cheated.

They know their Dad should get a patch of the Promised Land, but he’s dead and they have no brother to represent the family. God agrees: daughters can inherit land. That was two weeks ago (Num. 27:1-11).

Last week, women’s rights were shrinking. Unless they are independent, women can’t make vows without their man’s consent (Num. 30:2-17).

This week, the Old Boys’ Network gets together and engineers more restrictions on women. Now, the Daughters of Tzelafchad can’t marry outside their tribe lest their land should go to another tribe (Num. 36:1-12).

(Some say there’s a lesson here about freedom: it’s not a license to hurt others.)

And what little patch of land are they worried about? Moses was bringing everyone to a land west of the Jordan, but two-and-a-half tribes want to be east-siders (Num. 32), living outside the original Promised Land. This is where the descendants of Machir, who include the Daughters of Tzelafchad, seem to get their land (i.e., Gilead: Deut. 3:15).

Did they get cheated out of their patch of Promised Land? Did the Promise expand to include east-side land? Were the Israelites supposed to think beyond their desire for land, since God says: “All the land belongs to me, and you are foreigners and settlers” (Lev. 25:23)?

A few weeks ago we attended the Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia. Rabbi Avi Winokur said something that stuck with me. You remember that the daughters of Zelophechad had no brothers, so they inherited the land that would have been their father’s … and then the rest of their tribe complained they might lose some tribal land, so the girls had to marry within the tribe? Well, some people see this as a brief glimmer of equal rights snuffed out by the clamor of the male chauvinists, but Rabbi Winokur quoted a reliably feminist rabbi who said (and I paraphrase): “Sure, we all have a right to freedom, but we also have a responsibility to be, well, responsible. So freedom has to have limits.” Now, here’s the wise thing Rabbi Winokur said: if a traditional rabbi had said the same thing–one who wouldn’t accept a radical feminist rabbi as a rabbi–would we have accepted it, or do we mistakenly consider the source instead of the truth of a remark?

I should be able to learn from everybody, even someone who is stupid and mean.

Right?

Were They Cheated?

Listen, Joe!