Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Pinhas Numbers 25:10-30:1
By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat Israel - “Why do you reduce the name of our father from the midst of his family? Give to us a permanent holding of land….(as an inheritance) from our Father” (Numbers 27:4).

The daughters of Zlofhad have become synonymous with women throughout the generations who have courageously fought for women’s rights; indeed, they dramatically succeeded in transforming the laws of inheritance, to enable daughters to inherit their fathers’ land in the absence of male heirs. But the Sages of the Talmud do not refer to them as persistent champions of equality between the sexes or as avid feminists; they are rather called “wise women, expounding women, righteous women” (hakhmaniot, darshaniot, tzidkaniot, B.T. Bava Batra 119b). Moreover, the Kli Yakar (Rav Ephraim Lunshitz), in interpreting the Divine command to Moses which we read just a few weeks ago, “Send forth for yourself men to scout out the Land of Canaan” (Numbers 13:2), suggests that G-d was speaking sarcastically to Moses: I know you will send out your men, and the result will be disastrous; but if you would only send out women, the situation could be saved. His proof text is the commitment of the daughters of Zlofhad. Apparently, for the Kli Yakar, what characterized these women was not so much their feminism but was rather their passionate love of the land of Israel.

Let us analyze the Biblical text in an attempt to understand their true motivation. The complaint which they bring before Moses opens with the words: “Why do you reduce the name of our (deceased) father” by not giving us the inheritance rights to his land ? (Numbers 27:4). They are focusing not on an injustice being perpetrated against them, but rather on an injustice being done to their father; their father’s name is somehow being lessened, being reduced, while he is buried in his grave! What do these words mean?

It has truly been said that almost every individual has three names: the name that his parents gave him, which usually expresses in some way the aspirations they had for him; the name by which his friends call him, which expresses how his contemporaries see him; and the name which he gives to himself, which expresses the degree to which he has succeeded in overcoming limitations and even in re-creating himself.

But there is yet a fourth name, which is perhaps the most important name of all: the name which the individual leaves behind, after his death. The most obvious manner in which this name is born is through a child, a son or a daughter, in Hebrew ben or bat, which literally means a building; we build ourselves up into the future through the children we leave behind, or the students - the people we have influenced - whom we leave behind: in the words of our Sages, ‘and you shall teach Torah to your children’, which refers to your students, who are considered like your children.’ ” Those whom we have taught or touched, who continue the values and life-style by which we have lived our lives, are the further stories of our personal building, our continuation into future, our continuity into eternity. And of course from a Jewish perspective, our eternal building must be built upon the stones of our Jewish tradition, with the very Hebrew word for stone, even, being an amalgamation of the two Hebrew words av and ben, parent and child. This eternal building had its origins in the Garden of Eden, received its character and mission at Sinai, and anticipates the future repair of society in a world of peace. Every individual, mortal Jew yearns to be a stone in the immortal building of eternal Israel.

There is one more aspect to this building of Israel; its foundations must be deeply rooted in the soil of our eternal homeland Israel. Only in the land of Israel is there continuity between Jews today and Hebron where our patriarchs and matriarchs began their journey and chartered their destiny -and where their burial place remains a place of Jewish prayer, and between Jews today and Jerusalem, where world peace will eventually be realized and where Jews still pray at the Western Wall. On the other hand, in Babylon - today Iraq - for example, where the Jews experienced a Golden Age of creativity with the great yeshivot of the Talmudic amoraim and the post-Talmudic geonim during the first thousand years of the Common Era, there is not the slightest remnant of the once-proud Jewish community which flourished in that land. No wonder the Talmud insists that only in Israel can the Jewish residents consider themselves a Kehilla, a real and eternal community (B.T. Horayot 3b).

Hence the Bible tells of the tragedy of an individual who dies childless; ideally, his brother is to marry his widow, and the first son who is born shall assume the “name” of the deceased and receive the patrimony - portion of the land in Israel - of the deceased, so that the “name” of the deceased not be blotted out of Israel” (Deut. 25:7). Jewish eternity is predicated upon the continuation of the name of the deceased, expressed by the maintenance of his traditions, as well as upon rootedness in the land of Israel. And so Jacob blesses his grandchildren, “And my name and the name of my forbears Abraham, Isaac and Jacob shall be called through them, and they shall multiply into multitudes in the midst of the land (of Israel)” (Gen 48:16,4).

Yes, the daughters of Zlofhad made a great stride forward on behalf of women’s rights to inheritance by receiving their father’s patrimony. But their motivation was to secure their father’s eternity, was to see to it that his “name not be reduced” in the building of Jewish eternity, by his ability to give over (morasha) both his traditions and his portion of land to his daughters. This is how the Rabbis of the Talmud understood it, when they praised the daughters of Zlofhad for being wise, learned and righteous. They picture these women as having entered Moses’ Torah class when he was expounding on the Biblical verses dealing with “yibum,” the marriage of a man to the widow of his brother who died childless. “If we are considered like sons, and so our uncle may not marry our widowed mother, then give us a portion of our father’s estate as you would have done had we been male. And if we cannot inherit, then our mother must be able to enter a levirate marriage (yibum). Immediately, Moses - apparently impressed with the incontrovertible logic of these women - brought the matter before G-d, and they received the inheritance.” (B.T. Bava Batra 119b) Jewish eternity means having children in the land of Israel!

Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel