What Was So Special About Bnot Tzelafchad

(10) 10 (Numb. 27:1) “Then came forward the daughters of Zelophehad”: In that generation the women were fencing⁹On raising a fence about the Law, see Avot 1:1. that which the men were breaching. Accordingly you find that Aaron said to them (i.e., the men in Exod. 32:2), “Take off the gold rings that are in the ears of your wives”; but the women were unwilling and protested against their husbands. Thus it is stated (in vs. 3), “So all the people took off the gold rings that were in their¹⁰Since “their” is masculine here, there is an implication that the men only took their own earrings. ears.” Thus the women did not take part in making the [golden] calf. So also in the case of the spies who had spread slander (according to Numb. 14:36), “when they returned, they made [the whole congregation] murmur against him.” A decree was issued against them, because they had said (in Numb. 13:31), “We are unable to go up [against this people for they are stronger than us].” The women, however, were not with them in their counsel. What is written above the matter (in Numb. 26:65)? “Because the Lord had said to them, ‘They shall surely die in the wilderness,’ not a man of them remained […].” [Note that Scripture speaks of] “a man,” and not of "a woman.” Because they (i.e., the men) did not want to enter the land, but the women came forward to ask for an inheritance in the land. Therefore the parashah [about the death of that generation] was written next to this parashah, because what the men broke down the women fenced in.

(1) למשפחת מנשה בן יוסף OF THE FAMILIES OF MANASSEH THE SON OF JOSEPH — Why is this stated? Has it not already been said בן מנשה, and consequently we know that they belonged to the family of Manasseh the son of Joseph?! But it is to suggest the following idea to you: Just as Joseph held the Promised Land dear, as it is said, (Genesis 50:25) “And ye shall bring my bones up (to Palestine) from hence”, so, too, his daughters held the Land dear, as it is said, (v. 4) “Give us an inheritance”; and further to teach you that they were righteous all of them (everyone here mentioned in the pedigree), for in every case where a person’s doings and his ancestors’ doings are nowhere plainly described and Scripture somewhere enters into the details of the pedigree in respect to one of them, tracing his genealogy back to someone worthy of praise, it is evident that the person in question is himself a righteous man and a son of a righteous father.

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 a woman marries when she is less than twenty years old, she is able to give birth until she reaches the age of sixty; if she marries when she is twenty years old or older, she is able to give birth until she reaches the age of forty; 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, like the one done for Jochebed. As it is written: “And a man of the house of Levi went, and took as a wife a daughter of Levi” (Exodus 2:1).

They were righteous, In that they had never been married to someone unworthy of them. Then why did they meet with Moses at the end [of the forty years]? So that he would not [put on airs] over having abstained from his wife for forty years.¹²Since Moses regularly stood in the Divine Presence, he needed to preserve an unbroken state of purity. The Holy One, blessed be He, informed him through these [women], saying, “Here are women who without being commanded [remained unmarried] for forty years, until they were married to someone worthy of them.”

(1) (Bamidbar 27:1) "And there drew near the daughters of Tzelofchad": When the daughters of Tzelofchad heard that the land was to be apportioned to the tribes and not to females, they gathered together to take counsel, saying: Not as the mercies of flesh and blood are the mercies of the L-rd. The mercies of flesh and blood are greater for males than for females. Not so the mercies of He who spoke and brought the world into being. His mercies are for males and females (equally). His mercies are for all! As it is written (Psalms 145:9) "The L-rd is good to all, and His mercies are upon all of His creations."

(1) והוא לא היה וגו׳ AND HE WAS NOT [… IN THE CONGREGATION OF KORAH] — Because they intended to state בחטתו מת, that HE DIED IN HIS OWN SIN they felt compelled to say he had taken no part in the sin of those who murmured, nor had he been in the congregation of Korah who incited the people against the Holy One, blessed be He (cf. Sifrei Bamidbar 133:3, Bava Batra 118b), but he had died through his own sin only, and had not made others to sin with him (Sifrei Bamidbar 133:3). — As regards what this sin was, R. Akiba said that he was the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day (Numbers 15:32); R. Simeon said that he was one of those who presumed to disobey God’s command (Numbers 14:44) (Shabbat 96b).

(1) אבינו מת במדבר, "our father died in the desert, etc." The reason they said: "in the desert," was to emphasise that he did not die in Egypt because he was not worthy of the redemption. They wanted to establish immediately that their claim was based not only according to the opinion that the people who participated in the Exodus inherited the land but also according to the view of those who held that those present at the last census would inherit the land. Concerning those who held that the decisive factor was participation in the Exodus, they said that their father died in the desert, i.e. after the Exodus. By using the word במדבר, they also implied that he was amongst those whose death in the desert had been decreed by G'd as a result of the debacle with the spies when G'd had said (Numbers 14,29) "your carcasses will fall in the desert." This teaches that a) he had been over twenty years old at the time of the Exodus, and b) that he had not died as a result of a specific sin which carries the death penalty. According to those who held that the land was distributed in accordance with the people who participated in the latest census, they hinted that even those opinions were based on the inheritance first "returning" to the previous generation who had participated in the Exodus and that as a result they would be entitled to participate in the distribution.

"Give us a portion within the land of our father's brothers." Aren't these last words extraneous? Rather, they are present as half of the tribe of Menashe settled across the Jordan River. But the daughters specifically requested land within Israel, that was designated to their father's brothers, not their grandfather's brothers.