Parashat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10 – 27:23)

Summary

The name of the portion continues on an incident narrated in the previous parashah, in which Pinchas, the son of Eleazar the High Priest (who has taken over from his father Aaron, who has died) kills Zimri from the tribe of Simeon, and Cozbi a Midianite woman, for their shameless sexual behaviour.

Pinchas’ zealous act saves Israel from a plague, and he is rewarded with an everlasting hold on the office of the priesthood for his descendants. Moses commands the people to avenge themselves on the Midianites for seducing them into idolatry and sexual licentiousness with their women like Zimri and Cozbi, which caused the plague and cost the lives of 24000 souls.

After the plague Moses and Eleazar take a census of the entire people, which numbers 601,730 souls, and Moses announces the division of the land based on the size of each tribe, with the exemption of the Levites, who will not hold land but will be compensated for their work in the Sanctuary. During the census the five daughters of Zelophehad, Machla, Noah, Choglah, Milcah and Tirtzah present their case before Moses and the people, requesting that, since their father died sonless, they should inherit the land that should have been allotted to him so that his name would be perpetuated in the holding. God confirms their claim and Moses rules that if a man died sonless his daughter(s) may inherit his estate. Thereupon Moses is told by God to climb Mount Avarim, to see the Land of Israel, which, he is told he will not enter. God instructs Moses to appoint Joshua his successor. The portion concludes with the description of the offerings to be presented daily and on Shabbat and the festivals.

Commentaryby Rabbi Kathleen de Magtige-Middleton of The Liberal Jewish Synagogue

This portion raises many questions that merit much closer investigation; there is for example the ethical question regarding Pinchas’ zealousness and all the issues that raises. But there is also the story of the daughters of Zelophechad, and the issue of women’s rights. This issue is particularly interesting, as it seems at first glance such a wonderful success story of women’s equality in an otherwise patriarchal, and also rather violent portion. However, the triumph for women’s rights in our portions is only short lived, because in chapter 36 we encounter the tribal leaders of their clan raise a counter claim with Moses. They are afraid that if the women would marry outside their clan the clan would lose an important holding of land to the husbands from those other clans.

So what is the real issue at stake? The law originally excluded daughters from inheritance rights, because women could only own property when they were not under the guardianship of a man; their father, a brother, or their husband. As soon as the daughters would marry they would lose their property to their husbands and sons.

It was the survival of the clan and their ancestral holdings which governed the inheritance laws, and the claim of the daughters of Zelophechad could potentially threaten the survival of the clan and their holdings, and thus the Torah solves the dilemma by adding a stipulation to the inheritance law of daughters that they are allowed to marry only someone from a clan from their father’s tribe.

Why then did the Torah acknowledge the daughter’s claim in the first place? Because their claim had nothing to do with women’s equality; all the daughters were concerned about was the preservation of their father’s name and holding within the clan, after all without their inheritance the clan would loose out on a significant holding due to Zelophechad. The later stipulation to the law allowed them to perpetuate that holding only if the holding would remain within the clan as it passed on to their husbands.

So did the daughters win a significant case in the ongoing struggle for women’s equality? I think not – all they fought for was the perpetuation of their father’s name, and all they got was an inheritance that would eventually pass over to their future husbands and their sons. It took much longer time for women before they achieved full inheritance rights according to Jewish law: The rabbis modified the biblical inheritance laws by providing for the maintenance of the widow and the daughter(s) of the deceased, and only in the 16th century Rabbi Moses Isserles permitted fathers to give their daughters a gift of half of their sons’ share in their estate. In Israel daughters had to wait till 1943 before they were able to inherit on an equal footing with sons, due to a takkanah (halachic enactment) of the chief rabbinate of Palestine.

The struggle for full equality between men and women is an ongoing struggle, even today, even in the Progressive movement, because it is hard to change perceptions, and address the real issues underlying deeply engrained gender assumptions. The case of the daughters of Zelophechad teaches us to take such issues very seriously, to stop and think, what are the motivations of the existing inequality, and what do we need to change them to achieve the full equality that we advocate?

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