Post by Rabbi Neil on Nov 29, 2019 18:54:56 GMT
Who are the daughters of Tselophehad? If you ask most people, including Rabbis, they would tell you that the daughters of Tselophehad were sisters who, in this week’s Torah portion, approach Moses to demand their equal right to inheritance of their father’s property. There would be the explanation that inheritance passes to the men, and that when their father died the inheritance would therefore go out of the clan, so the daughters of Tselophehad made sure the inheritance stayed in the clan by approaching Moses and convincing him, and God, that they as daughters needed to inherit.
Some people, most usually the Rabbis, might perhaps add a passage from the Talmud which says that “one who dies and leaves sons and daughters, if the estate is large the sons inherit and the daughters are supported, whereas if the estate is small, the daughters are supported and the sons go begging door to door.” (Bava Btra 139b) Depending on the Rabbi, they might suggest that either this suggests that Jewish law is always considerate of women, even if it may not demand equality, or they may suggest that Jewish law was in the past always unrealistically biased towards the men. Rabbinic law squirms its way around the issue of women’s inheritance. Rabbi Moshe Meiselman, in his well researched but thoroughly misogynistic book “Jewish Woman in Jewish Law,” says that inheritance in Judaism isn’t just financial but is the inheritance of the self, in the sense of his work and the way a man lived his life. Therefore, according to Meiselman, it is obviously preferable for men to inherit the estates of men because they are more likely to continue the lifestyle of their father. A son can go out and earn a living, a daughter cannot. He notes that there are obvious exceptions to the rule, and that sometimes women are better suited to take over their father’s employment than men, but, and I quote, he says that “the law must reflect the rule rather than the exception.” Meiselman then goes on, from a discussion about the daughters of Tselophehad, to strongly imply that just as the Levites didn’t inherit land because they were designated to serve God, so too women don’t inherit because of their special, distinct purpose. So, for Meiselman, the daughters of Tselophehad are an important exception that helps us better understand why men are best suited for inheritance.
Who are the daughters of Tselophehad? Surely the contemporary midrashic text called The Five Books of Miriam would answer, and indeed it does. It gives three answers – the first from ancient Rabbinic sources which says that they are so pious and learned that they choose to remain unmarried for forty years because they cannot find suitable partners. Therefore, when they finally do marry late as a result of their piety, they miraculously give birth at the age of 130, like Moses’ mother Yocheved. The second answer given is of modern Rabbis who say that it is justification for modern inheritance by women. The third answer, put in the mouth of the learned woman in the Talmud called Beruriah, is that the daughters of Tselophehad teach us a valuable lesson about the flexibility of Jewish law that it can expand and embrace women. All true, all very interesting. The first answer, it should be noted, is interesting because throughout Jewish history learned women generally remained unmarried because what self-respecting man would want a wife more learned than he [look embarrassed at Rabbi Jenny]? This fear of having a knowledgeable wife was therefore transposed back into Biblical commentaries onto these five daughters.
So far, then, the answers to the question of “Who are the daughters of Tselophehad” have been,
1) Women who are the exception to the rule, and who show us that men and women need to be treated differently – an Orthodox position,
2) Women who were so pious that they asked the right question, but who in their piety were clearly an exception rather than the rule,
3) Women who were the brave forebears of modern egalitarianism,
4) Women who were the brave forebears of halakhic flexibility.
At some point in my life, if anyone had asked me “Who are the daughters of Tselophehad” I would never have said the first position, but might have easily suggested one of the latter three. I would have waived the Reform flag to show how the daughters of Tselophehad were, essentially, Reform Jews in waiting. After fourteen years in the Rabbinate, I now realise that these answers were because I was buying into a certain way of Rabbinic thinking that needs to come to an end, and quickly. Now I know my answer to the question.
Who were the daughters of Tselophehad? They were Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah and Tirtzah. That’s who they were. They were people. They were women. And they had names, they had identities. Everyone I know calls them “the daughters of Tselophehad”…these are five women who, even in the height of their plea for equal recognition, are still defined by their father, Tselophehad. You just don’t read of the five famous sisters Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah and Tirtzah. You read of the five famous daughters of a man called Tselophehad. That’s a problem, and it has been endemic to the Rabbinic, and therefore, Jewish way of thinking. The Orthodox have been so busy proving that these sisters were exceptions, and the Progressive Jews have been so busy proving that they were our forerunners, that we all forgot that they were five women with five different names – Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah and Tirtzah. They weren’t test-cases, they were people.
In fact, Numbers 27, where we find the story of these five women, does not present them well. It says, “The daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph.” They’re not just daughters of one man, they’re daughters of a man who is the son of another man who is the son of another man who is the son of another man who is the son of another man! My point is that in order to present these five women by name, Torah feels like it has to legitimize them by first presenting five generations of male heritage. Their own humanity is almost irrelevant – their being is not their own, it is that of their male ancestors.
In her book “Womanist Midrash,” Wilda Gafney compares Numbers 27 with Numbers 36, the two instances in Torah where these five women are mentioned. What she points out is that in the second reference, it takes 11 verses for the women to be named. As she says (p.160), “the women have been rendered invisible and silent” by the men who are trying to deal with the legal issue that they present. And there is a real difference between these two passages. In the first, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah approach Moses to ask for inheritance that their father’s name not disappear from his clan. Moses asks God, God says that’s just and Moses should allow their inheritance. But only nine chapters later, there’s a legal problem. What if they should marry outside their tribe? Then the whole inheritance system collapses. Once again, these women have become a problem in the social structure of men, and it is here that it takes a very long time for them to even be named. Their being is no longer even that of their male ancestors, their being is a halakhic category, a challenge to the status quo, an issue. They are a problem.
Gafney brings an extremely important point – that this is not the end of the story. We assume that Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah get their land, because God said that they should and because Moses later agrees that they should so long as they marry within the tribe. But at the end of Moses’ life, when he’s summarizing which land has gone to which people, four times he mentions land from the tribe of Manasseh (Deut. 3:13, 29:8, 33:17, 34:2) and at no time does he mention that land was set aside for these five women. That’s because while Moses lived they never got it. Only after he dies, in chapter 17 of the Book of Joshua, do they turn to the new leader and say that they were promised land and never received it, at which point it is given to them.
Why do they not get their portion from Moses, despite him addressing the situation not just once but twice? I think it’s because Moses is so wrapped up in legality that he totally forgets humanity. To him, he has resolved the legal issue and the halakhic system has remained intact despite two challenges from these five women. In his mind, he has done his job which is to ensure the law remains consistent. But was that his job? What happened to the man who saw a Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian and, law or not, stepped in to defend the oppressed man’s rights? (Ex. 2:12)
Of course, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah teach us to stand up for our rights and particularly to undo patriarchal bias throughout our society. Yes, they remind us not to treat people as categories, but as individuals. And yes, they remind us that we should keep our promises. All those things are true but there’s more – Jewish tradition cannot be defined by law but must instead be defined by justice in the eyes of God. Moses’ job wasn’t to protect the law, but to help the people bring Divine justice to earth.
There is a midrash (Tanhuma Pinchas 8-9, NumR 21:12) which I at first hated but which I now love. In it, God rebukes Moses for bringing the case of these five women before God, saying, “Did you not say to the people ‘Any case that is too difficult for you, bring it to me and I shall hear it’ [Deut. 1:17]? But now you find a law that you did not know set forth by women?!?” It seems to reek of sexism, as if to critique Moses for not being able to address legal concerns as basic as those of women. But we don’t have to read the midrash that way at all. What if God’s rebuke is not about law but about justice? What if God is saying, “Why is it that these women are bringing you an obvious case of justice and you’re dealing with it like some everyday legal problem? What’s wrong with you? Where’s your heart, man? Look after these women! Protect those in need as you used to!” Moses is the orthodox voice of law, whereas Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah are the progressive voice of justice that cries out, “Sometimes the law is not just and it needs to be changed.” Theirs is the voice that insists that a legal tradition that is not predicated on justice is not worth preserving at all.
This sidrah, then, begs us to protect the weak. It implores us to treat the vulnerable in our society not as categories or problems or legal issues, but as individuals demanding an authentic, compassionate, individualized human response. But more than that, it challenges us to always evaluate our tradition through the lens of justice in the eyes of God, and for us to work together to consider what that means. It asks us to look around and ask what unmet needs are being held by those around us, and pushes us to find out how we can help meet those needs. That means not getting so caught up in the work of community that we, like Moses, forget the humanity of community. May we, then, bring justice in the eyes of God to the forefront of our community. May that be a guiding principle in the decisions we make. May it therefore inform the way we interact with everyone around us, acknowledging their own unique and essential need for justice, and let us say, Amen.
Some people, most usually the Rabbis, might perhaps add a passage from the Talmud which says that “one who dies and leaves sons and daughters, if the estate is large the sons inherit and the daughters are supported, whereas if the estate is small, the daughters are supported and the sons go begging door to door.” (Bava Btra 139b) Depending on the Rabbi, they might suggest that either this suggests that Jewish law is always considerate of women, even if it may not demand equality, or they may suggest that Jewish law was in the past always unrealistically biased towards the men. Rabbinic law squirms its way around the issue of women’s inheritance. Rabbi Moshe Meiselman, in his well researched but thoroughly misogynistic book “Jewish Woman in Jewish Law,” says that inheritance in Judaism isn’t just financial but is the inheritance of the self, in the sense of his work and the way a man lived his life. Therefore, according to Meiselman, it is obviously preferable for men to inherit the estates of men because they are more likely to continue the lifestyle of their father. A son can go out and earn a living, a daughter cannot. He notes that there are obvious exceptions to the rule, and that sometimes women are better suited to take over their father’s employment than men, but, and I quote, he says that “the law must reflect the rule rather than the exception.” Meiselman then goes on, from a discussion about the daughters of Tselophehad, to strongly imply that just as the Levites didn’t inherit land because they were designated to serve God, so too women don’t inherit because of their special, distinct purpose. So, for Meiselman, the daughters of Tselophehad are an important exception that helps us better understand why men are best suited for inheritance.
Who are the daughters of Tselophehad? Surely the contemporary midrashic text called The Five Books of Miriam would answer, and indeed it does. It gives three answers – the first from ancient Rabbinic sources which says that they are so pious and learned that they choose to remain unmarried for forty years because they cannot find suitable partners. Therefore, when they finally do marry late as a result of their piety, they miraculously give birth at the age of 130, like Moses’ mother Yocheved. The second answer given is of modern Rabbis who say that it is justification for modern inheritance by women. The third answer, put in the mouth of the learned woman in the Talmud called Beruriah, is that the daughters of Tselophehad teach us a valuable lesson about the flexibility of Jewish law that it can expand and embrace women. All true, all very interesting. The first answer, it should be noted, is interesting because throughout Jewish history learned women generally remained unmarried because what self-respecting man would want a wife more learned than he [look embarrassed at Rabbi Jenny]? This fear of having a knowledgeable wife was therefore transposed back into Biblical commentaries onto these five daughters.
So far, then, the answers to the question of “Who are the daughters of Tselophehad” have been,
1) Women who are the exception to the rule, and who show us that men and women need to be treated differently – an Orthodox position,
2) Women who were so pious that they asked the right question, but who in their piety were clearly an exception rather than the rule,
3) Women who were the brave forebears of modern egalitarianism,
4) Women who were the brave forebears of halakhic flexibility.
At some point in my life, if anyone had asked me “Who are the daughters of Tselophehad” I would never have said the first position, but might have easily suggested one of the latter three. I would have waived the Reform flag to show how the daughters of Tselophehad were, essentially, Reform Jews in waiting. After fourteen years in the Rabbinate, I now realise that these answers were because I was buying into a certain way of Rabbinic thinking that needs to come to an end, and quickly. Now I know my answer to the question.
Who were the daughters of Tselophehad? They were Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah and Tirtzah. That’s who they were. They were people. They were women. And they had names, they had identities. Everyone I know calls them “the daughters of Tselophehad”…these are five women who, even in the height of their plea for equal recognition, are still defined by their father, Tselophehad. You just don’t read of the five famous sisters Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah and Tirtzah. You read of the five famous daughters of a man called Tselophehad. That’s a problem, and it has been endemic to the Rabbinic, and therefore, Jewish way of thinking. The Orthodox have been so busy proving that these sisters were exceptions, and the Progressive Jews have been so busy proving that they were our forerunners, that we all forgot that they were five women with five different names – Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah and Tirtzah. They weren’t test-cases, they were people.
In fact, Numbers 27, where we find the story of these five women, does not present them well. It says, “The daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph.” They’re not just daughters of one man, they’re daughters of a man who is the son of another man who is the son of another man who is the son of another man who is the son of another man! My point is that in order to present these five women by name, Torah feels like it has to legitimize them by first presenting five generations of male heritage. Their own humanity is almost irrelevant – their being is not their own, it is that of their male ancestors.
In her book “Womanist Midrash,” Wilda Gafney compares Numbers 27 with Numbers 36, the two instances in Torah where these five women are mentioned. What she points out is that in the second reference, it takes 11 verses for the women to be named. As she says (p.160), “the women have been rendered invisible and silent” by the men who are trying to deal with the legal issue that they present. And there is a real difference between these two passages. In the first, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah approach Moses to ask for inheritance that their father’s name not disappear from his clan. Moses asks God, God says that’s just and Moses should allow their inheritance. But only nine chapters later, there’s a legal problem. What if they should marry outside their tribe? Then the whole inheritance system collapses. Once again, these women have become a problem in the social structure of men, and it is here that it takes a very long time for them to even be named. Their being is no longer even that of their male ancestors, their being is a halakhic category, a challenge to the status quo, an issue. They are a problem.
Gafney brings an extremely important point – that this is not the end of the story. We assume that Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah get their land, because God said that they should and because Moses later agrees that they should so long as they marry within the tribe. But at the end of Moses’ life, when he’s summarizing which land has gone to which people, four times he mentions land from the tribe of Manasseh (Deut. 3:13, 29:8, 33:17, 34:2) and at no time does he mention that land was set aside for these five women. That’s because while Moses lived they never got it. Only after he dies, in chapter 17 of the Book of Joshua, do they turn to the new leader and say that they were promised land and never received it, at which point it is given to them.
Why do they not get their portion from Moses, despite him addressing the situation not just once but twice? I think it’s because Moses is so wrapped up in legality that he totally forgets humanity. To him, he has resolved the legal issue and the halakhic system has remained intact despite two challenges from these five women. In his mind, he has done his job which is to ensure the law remains consistent. But was that his job? What happened to the man who saw a Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian and, law or not, stepped in to defend the oppressed man’s rights? (Ex. 2:12)
Of course, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah teach us to stand up for our rights and particularly to undo patriarchal bias throughout our society. Yes, they remind us not to treat people as categories, but as individuals. And yes, they remind us that we should keep our promises. All those things are true but there’s more – Jewish tradition cannot be defined by law but must instead be defined by justice in the eyes of God. Moses’ job wasn’t to protect the law, but to help the people bring Divine justice to earth.
There is a midrash (Tanhuma Pinchas 8-9, NumR 21:12) which I at first hated but which I now love. In it, God rebukes Moses for bringing the case of these five women before God, saying, “Did you not say to the people ‘Any case that is too difficult for you, bring it to me and I shall hear it’ [Deut. 1:17]? But now you find a law that you did not know set forth by women?!?” It seems to reek of sexism, as if to critique Moses for not being able to address legal concerns as basic as those of women. But we don’t have to read the midrash that way at all. What if God’s rebuke is not about law but about justice? What if God is saying, “Why is it that these women are bringing you an obvious case of justice and you’re dealing with it like some everyday legal problem? What’s wrong with you? Where’s your heart, man? Look after these women! Protect those in need as you used to!” Moses is the orthodox voice of law, whereas Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah are the progressive voice of justice that cries out, “Sometimes the law is not just and it needs to be changed.” Theirs is the voice that insists that a legal tradition that is not predicated on justice is not worth preserving at all.
This sidrah, then, begs us to protect the weak. It implores us to treat the vulnerable in our society not as categories or problems or legal issues, but as individuals demanding an authentic, compassionate, individualized human response. But more than that, it challenges us to always evaluate our tradition through the lens of justice in the eyes of God, and for us to work together to consider what that means. It asks us to look around and ask what unmet needs are being held by those around us, and pushes us to find out how we can help meet those needs. That means not getting so caught up in the work of community that we, like Moses, forget the humanity of community. May we, then, bring justice in the eyes of God to the forefront of our community. May that be a guiding principle in the decisions we make. May it therefore inform the way we interact with everyone around us, acknowledging their own unique and essential need for justice, and let us say, Amen.