"The Daughters of Tzelafchad: The Tikkun for Dor Hamidbar"

(1) Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph; and these are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah. (2) And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, at the door of the tent of meeting, saying: (3) ’Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not among the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah, but he died in his own sin; and he had no sons. (4) Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he had no son? Give unto us a possession among the brethren of our father.’ (5) And Moses brought their cause before the LORD. (6) And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: (7) ’The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. (8) And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. (9) And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren. (10) And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father’s brethren. (11) And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it. And it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.’

(1) And the heads of the fathers’houses of the family of the children of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near, and spoke before Moses, and before the princes, the heads of the fathers’houses of the children of Israel; (2) and they said: ‘The LORD commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the children of Israel; and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother unto his daughters. (3) And if they be married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the children of Israel, then will their inheritance be taken away from the inheritance of our fathers, and will be added to the inheritance of the tribe whereunto they shall belong; so will it be taken away from the lot of our inheritance. (4) And when the jubilee of the children of Israel shall be, then will their inheritance be added unto the inheritance of the tribe whereunto they shall belong; so will their inheritance be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.’ (5) And Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying: ‘The tribe of the sons of Joseph speaketh right. (6) This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying: Let them be married to whom they think best; only into the family of the tribe of their father shall they be married. (7) So shall no inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe; for the children of Israel shall cleave every one to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. (8) And every daughter, that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may possess every man the inheritance of his fathers. (9) So shall no inheritance remove from one tribe to another tribe; for the tribes of the children of Israel shall cleave each one to its own inheritance.’ (10) Even as the LORD commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad. (11) For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married unto their father’s brothers’sons. (12) They were married into the families of the sons of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father. (13) These are the commandments and the ordinances, which the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

(1) And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying: (2) ’Let the children of Israel keep the passover in its appointed season. (3) In the fourteenth day of this month, at dusk, ye shall keep it in its appointed season; according to all the statutes of it, and according to all the ordinances thereof, shall ye keep it.’ (4) And Moses spoke unto the children of Israel, that they should keep the passover. (5) And they kept the passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at dusk, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel. (6) But there were certain men, who were unclean by the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the passover on that day; and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day. (7) And those men said unto him: ‘We are unclean by the dead body of a man; wherefore are we to be kept back, so as not to bring the offering of the LORD in its appointed season among the children of Israel?’ (8) And Moses said unto them: ‘Stay ye, that I may hear what the LORD will command concerning you.’ (9) And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:

(1) Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; (2) and they rose up in face of Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty men; they were princes of the congregation, the elect men of the assembly, men of renown; (3) and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them: ‘Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them; wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?’ (4) And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face. (5) And he spoke unto Korah and unto all his company, saying: ‘In the morning the LORD will show who are His, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near unto Him; even him whom He may choose will He cause to come near unto Him. .

(6) The mishna discusses the five major communal fast days. Five calamitous matters occurred to our forefathers on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and five other disasters happened on the Ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken by Moses when he saw that the Jews had made the golden calf; the daily offering was nullified by the Roman authorities and was never sacrificed again; the city walls of Jerusalem were breached; the general Apostemos publicly burned a Torah scroll; and Manasseh placed an idol in the Sanctuary. On the Ninth of Av it was decreed upon our ancestors that they would all die in the wilderness and not enter Eretz Yisrael; and the Temple was destroyed the first time, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and the second time, by the Romans; and Beitar was captured; and the city of Jerusalem was plowed, as a sign that it would never be rebuilt. Not only does one fast on the Ninth of Av, but from when the month of Av begins, one decreases acts of rejoicing.

..."Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel taught: There were no happier days for Israel than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, when the daughters of Jerusalem would go out wearing borrowed white garments… and the daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards, and what would they say? ‘Young man, lift up your eyes and see whom you choose for yourself'…."...

"This is understandable concerning Yom Kippur - for this is a day of atonement and forgiveness, the day when the second set of Tablets were given. But what is [special about] the fifteenth of Av? Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shemuel: It was the day when tribes were permitted to intermarry [i.e., on this day license was found for intertribal marriages - even for daughters who inherited portions]. How did they deduce this? [From the words,] 'THIS IS THE THING that God commanded to the daughters of Tzelofchad…' - THIS THING WILL BE PRACTICED ONLY IN THIS GENERATION."