Lessons from the Daughters of Tzelafchad: Genetics is not necessarily destiny Kesher Shabbat Mevarchim Women's Lecture Series 5779 Parshat Pinchas

(1) The daughters of Zelophehad, of Manassite family—son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh son of Joseph—came forward. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. (2) They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the chieftains, and the whole assembly, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and they said, (3) “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not one of the faction, Korah’s faction, which banded together against the LORD, but died for his own sin; and he has left no sons. (4) Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!”

§ The Sages taught: The daughters of Zelophehad are wise, they are interpreters of verses, and they are righteous.

"In that generation, the women would repair what the men had breached…for the men had not wanted to enter the land, but the women drew close in order to request a portion in that land. Therefore, this section was related on the heels of the death of the generation of the wilderness, for there the men had breached and the women had repaired…"

(5) Moses brought their case before the LORD.

The verse continues: “And the cause that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.” Rabbi Ḥanina, and some say Rabbi Yoshiya, says: On account of this matter, which displayed a degree of presumptuousness, Moses was punished, as it is stated: “And Moses brought their cause before the Lord” (Numbers 27:5). In this instance, when Zelophehad’s daughters presented their case to Moses, he did not know the answer himself and was compelled to ask God.

(6) And the LORD said to Moses, (7) “The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just: you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them.

(11) ...This shall be the law of procedure for the Israelites, in accordance with the LORD’s command to Moses.”

That they are righteous can be seen from the fact that they did not rush to marry, but rather waited to marry those fit for them. Rabbi Eliezer ben Ya’akov teaches: Even the youngest to be married among them was not married at less than forty years of age. The Gemara asks: Is that so? But doesn’t Rav Ḥisda say: ... if she marries when she is forty years old or older, she is no longer able to give birth at all. If so, how could Zelophehad’s daughters have waited until the age of forty to marry? Rather, since they are righteous women, a miracle was performed for them.