The Women Who Spoke What is Right

Parashat Pinchas, Numbers 25:10—30:1

Daniel Nessim, Kehilat Tsion, Vancouver, BC

Our parasha begins this week with a blessing on Pinchas for his heroic action to preserve Israel’s moral and spiritual character. In the following chapter, the children of Israel are numbered, clan by clan, specifically counting those of fighting age. After that the inheritances of the tribes, clans, and families of Israel are listed. Now we can see why it is the warriors who are counted. Israel is going to war in order to inherit its Land. As Rashi noted, and as is plain in the text, these warriors were counted “after their fathers’ tribes . . . and not after their mothers.”

So what about the women then? Actually, they are far from absent.

Right after the census and just before Moses was instructed to go up into Mount Abarim (today called Mount Nebo in Jordan) to view the Land before dying and being gathered to his people, the women feature prominently (Num 27:1–11).

Moses, the great teacher of the Law, was presented with one final and consequential decision to make in his lifetime. A crucial decision concerning inheritance law had to be made. How would Moses decide? But it was not Moses who decided the Law. Midrash Rabbah 21.12 comments, “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to [Moses]: ‘did you not say, “The cause that is too hard for you ye shall bring unto me”? The law with which you are unacquainted is decided by the women!’” The law was thus decided by Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, the five daughters of Zelophehad. They were probably quite young, as there is no statement that they were married.

Their father Zelophehad was one of the generation who had died in the wilderness, but his daughters wanted to preserve their father’s heritage, their family’s heritage, in the Promised Land as it was divided up and assigned to the people.

It is tempting to look at the ancient biblical text through modern eyes. Doing so can obscure our understanding of the author’s intent. For example, some might view the story of Zelophehad’s daughters against modern concepts of Patriarchy. Britannica online describes Patriarchy as an “hypothetical social system in which the father or a male elder has absolute authority over the family group; by extension, one or more men (as in a council) exert absolute authority over the community as a whole.” Is that the view of Torah, which exalts the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and typically names families, clans, and tribes by their patriarchs?

Naturally, it is dangerous to take modern concepts and apply them directly to ancient cultures and texts. On the other hand, we can’t pretend that we don’t live in the world we live in now, and that this doesn’t affect the questions we have when we come to the Torah. So setting aside our contemporary questions about patriarchy as well as family and community structure, what does Moses tell us in our parashah? What does this parashah tell us about family and community structure in Moses’ day?

While women are not mentioned as much as men in our parashah, or in Scripture as a whole, there is no doubt that they have as much agency and initiative as anyone. Sometimes this can be negative. When Pinchas slew an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, both are named (Num 25:14). She was Cozbi the daughter of Zur, who was head of the people of a father’s house in Midian. Both she and Zimri who died with her are treated as significant persons, members of households, or clans, known by a patriarch. The significance of the patriarch and the significance of the individual are both upheld. The two were equal in their transgression, and equal in the judgment they received. Both of them are described (interestingly) as descended from a “prince.”

A number of times in the subsequent counting of the warriors of Israel, women are included. Were they also warriors? Within the tribe of Manasseh (Num 26:33), Zelophehad’s daughters Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah are first mentioned. Were they also fighters? They do seem to have been counted. The same applies to the daughter of Asher, whose name was Serah (Num 26:46). Among the Levites, Amram’s wife is named as Jochebed (Num 26:59). The counting is by families. Families with sons and daughters. Whereas the transgressors Cozbi and Zimri were described as the offspring of princes, among the children of Israel they were all families.

To be in a home led by a “prince” smacks of that authoritarian system where male figures hold absolute sway. Moses portrays his people, the children of Israel, quite differently, and perhaps we should look at ourselves and our communities in the same way. Families, especially multi-generational families as Moses listed them, are collaborative communities where each individual participates according to relational rules, not on the basis of authoritarian impositions.

Societies and family structures based purely on authority contrast with those among the people of the Promise. Take for example the descendants of Esau and Jacob. Esau’s descendants (who were outside of the Promise) were generally described as chiefs (Gen 36). Jacob’s descendants were described as sons (Gen 35:22–26). Esau’s descendants were those of a hunter. Jacob’s descendants were those of an ish tam, one who was perfect, or complete, with integrity (Gen 25:26).

In Parashat Pinchas, Moses upholds the dignity of every child of Israel, man or woman. The modern idea of “patriarchy” would have been foreign to him. There were people whose families were dominated by authority figures, whether they were called princes or chiefs, but in Parashat Pinchas, Moses saw families, and families are where every member is valued.

This is why the daughters of Zelophehad are mentioned with such respect. Midrash Rabbah 21.12 attributes to them the role of judges of the law, even in Moses’ presence, for as the Lord said, they “speak what is right” (Num 27:6). That is quite startling! Before Moses himself, the women judge rightly and the Lord puts his seal of approval on their interpretation of the Law.

These women were not only descendants of Israel, but also descendants of the righteous Joseph, we are told (Num 27:1). The midrash in the passage already mentioned describes them as “wise and righteous.” Perhaps this is more typical of women than men, the midrash intimates, as it points out that when the Lord said of Israel “they shall surely die in the wilderness,” our parshah seems to indicate that this only applied to the men. It was the men who all died, not the women, according to the midrash. We are told (Num 26:65) “there was not left a man of them.” Were the women more righteous? On this day, they were certainly the wise ones, and to this day they remind us to pay heed to the way the Almighty views us – men and women alike, the children of Israel.

“Have this attitude in yourselves, which also was in Messiah Yeshua.” Rav Shaul wrote this in his letter to the Philippians (Phil 2:5). His counsel stands today as well as it did then.