Parashat Pinchas
Numbers 25:10–30:1
As they prepare to enter the Promised Land, the tribes of Israel are each assigned what will become their tribal holdings. Each tribe is to receive a section of the land. This allotment is then divided up into smaller pieces, to be given out to each family. Again we read a text that is repetitious in the way it conveys detailed organizational information. To be honest, the allotments were of no interest to anyone unless it was their own allotment. So we can imagine the masses of the Israelites hanging around while the lottery announcements are proclaimed, killing time.
But then something extraordinary happens. A group of five sisters challenges the proceedings! They notice, correctly, that the law does not give daughters a chance to inherit family estates. Such a feature of the law should not be surprising in a world in which women were expected to be taken care of by the menfolk of a family. But the sisters – the “daughters of their father Tz’lof’had” – are not ready to accept the status quo. They argue that the system is unjust because it excludes them from partaking in the heritage of their people and, significantly, it unfairly debars their late father from having a portion in the land that he had dreamt of entering.
Moses is taken aback. Who were these women to question God’a Law? But, to his credit, the Torah tells us that “Moses brought their case before the Eternal One.” (Num. 27:5) In Hebrew the words “their case” is one word – mishpatan. It consists of the word “mishpat” – meaning “case” or “fair judgment,” and the final letter “nun,” which serves as the possessive pronoun, “their.” Uniquely, this final letter nun is written extra large in the Torah scroll. Why is that?
It seems that the tradition wishes to emphasize that this “mishpat” is theirs and no one else’s. Indeed, were the letter written as usual, it would be very easy to mistake it for another letter, vav. Then the word would be “mishpato – his [call for] fair judgment.” And we would have ascribed the appeal to Moses Our Teacher. Instead, the Torah goes out of its way to tell us that this case of demanding justice is all theirs. Apparently the Torah wishes us to appreciate that this demand was not initiated by any authoritative figure. It was a challenge to God brought by people who were seen as secondary persons, lacking standing in society. Though they were perceived as powerless, they did not allow that perception to quiet their own sense of right and wrong. They had the courage – and the nerve- to stand (Num. 27:2) before Moses and the whole community and argue with God’s teaching.
Indeed, we might recall that the very first time the Torah employs the word “mishpat” is in the story of Abraham arguing with God over God’s initial plan to destroy the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. There Abraham is shocked that God seems ready to violate God’s own standard of mishpat. And God agrees that Abraham is right. Here, as well, it is these women who refuse to allow the codified law to remain unjustified in the court of justice. And here, too, God agrees that they are absolutely right. These sisters are called “the daughters of Tz’lof’had.” But they could justly be called “the daughters of Abraham.”
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein
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image: “Invisible” © Anastasia Yankovskaya used with permission via Creative Commons License.
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