Posted on 07/07/23
This week the Torah records how the daughters of Tzelafchad stood up for their rights in requesting a right to inherit their deceased father's share in the Land of Israel, in the absence of a male heir. They succeed in securing it, meriting the rare honor of 'adding a portion to the Torah'.
We are taught that it was due to their 'great love of the land' that they sought a stake in the land and were thus worthy of this accomplishment.
Although their request could have appeared as merely a quest for financial security — absent from any spiritual connection to the land — the Midrash teaches that it was in the timing of their entreaty that their altruistic intentions were indicated.
These women rose up in the generation of the wilderness and merited to take the reward of all of them.
This teaches you at what moment they stood before Moshe — at the moment that Israel was saying, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt!" (Bamidbar 14:4)
Moshes said, [to the daughters of Tzelafchad], "Israel is demanding to return to Egypt, and you demand an inheritance in the Land?!"
They answered, "We know that in the end all Israel will claim their share in the Land; as it is said, 'It is a time to act for G-d — they have transgressed your Torah/Law!' Tehillim. (199:126) Don't read it like that, read it [in reverse] ' They have transgressed your Torah — it is a time to act for God.'" ...and then, Hillel would say, "Where there is no man, try to be a man." (Yalkut Shimoni 776:13)
It appears from this Midrash that their initial appeal was presented nearly forty years earlier, after the Sin of the Spies when the people rebelled and expressed the desire to 'return to Egypt'. In the heat of the turmoil, 'they demand an inheritance'. Moshe seems annoyed by their ask when he bewilderedly responds, "The tribes are demanding to return to Egypt, is now a time appropriate to insist for an inheritance ?!"
Why not? What was wrong in their approach? The menfolk had lost faith — in Moshe and G-d — isn't it courageous of the women to step up and declare their allegiance and trust, expecting to enter the land? Why was Moshe so incredulous?
Perhaps what Moshe was questioning was their assumption that G-d would still lead them into the land in the face of this terrible sin and lapse of faith.
In fact, until Moshe eventually succeeded in gaining a reprieve that they would indeed enter the land — and only after a forty-year sentence in the wilderness — G-d indicated a desire to annihilate them and make Moshe and his seed a greater nation.
The answer to this dilemma is dependent on a careful reading of the daughters of Tzelafchad's response. They said clearly, "we know that in the end we will get there".
They went on to bring scriptural support from a verse in Tehillim, cleverly reversing the two parts of the verse to prove their point.
The verse states עת לעשות לד' — For it is a time to act for G-d, הפרו תורתך — they have voided your Torah.
The simple reading, as Rashi in Brachos (63) explains, refers to the 'times' of judgment, meting out punishment — an 'act for G-d', since 'they have voided Your Torah' — having sinned.
G-d instituted in the world a balance. When we err, we move the world from its spiritual axis. We must endure subsequent challenges, uniquely suited to set us back on the right path, so that we may reestablish that original perfect equilibrium.
If that were the case, when we make fatal mistakes, we must take it on the chin accepting the outlined path of correction, as the verse teaches.
This is a new reality that must come into existence to right the world.
The daughters of Tzelafchad, sprang immediately into action asserting with absolute devotion, faith in their ability to yet fulfill the original mission. These wise and learned women observed in this verse an additional directive.
Read the verse as if the second half precedes the first.
When a world becomes voided through sin, we must right it instantly by asserting the 'time' is now to jump into action — acting for G-d, returning to the former reality before it slips away.
They thus informed Moshe that they now knew with certainty that with their fulfilling this Divine directive they would certainly inevitably enter the land, without a need to change the entire game plan.
The Midrash concludes with the words of the great sage Hillel who states in Avos, במקום שאין אנשים — In a place where there are no men, השתדל להיות איש — strive to be a man. (אבות ב ה)
Clearly these brave women 'manned up'. The Yalkut quotes in the name of Rebbe Nosson, who said that we observe from here how, יפה כח הנשים מכח אנשים — Greater is the strength of women than the strength of men.
There is a fascinating allusion to this notion of these women stepping up to the plate in the role of an איש — 'Man'.
This was the census of Moshe and Eliezer the Kohen, who counted the children of Israel in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan at Jericho. Among these, לא היה איש — there was no man who had been [included] in the census of Moses and Aaron when they counted the children of Israel in the Sinai desert. (Bamidbar 26, 63)
Rashi comments: Among these there was no man: But the women were not included in the decree [enacted in the aftermath] of the spies, for they cherished the land. The men said, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt!", whereas the women said, "Give us a portion." This is why the passage of Tzelofchad's daughters follows here.
Rabbi Dovid Luria, one of the greatest Torah scholars of the 18th century, teaches that the root of the word we use for 'man' — איש, is יש — literally, 'is', denoting something that exists — that is real.
Our objective in life is to live with 'reality'. Man, though, is often deluded by his imagined fears, distorted perceptions, and distractions that draw him away from reality to a realm of illusion.
Our sages taught that man only sins if he is possessed by a 'spirit of foolishness'.
We can snap out of that deception by being prodded through providence, in the guise of obstacles and difficulties that wake us up to reality. Or we can arouse ourselves to truth by 'acting for G-d' and connecting to the supra reality of Torah.
Women are evidently more anchored to that reality than men.
This quality is not gender related, as anyone may rise to become an איש among men!
May we always remain anchored in truth and strive to be a 'man', and 'get real'!
באהבה,
צבי יהודה טייכמאן